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LECTURES 


ORIGIN    AND    GROWTH 


PSALMS 


BY  y 

THOMAS  CHALMERS  MURRAY 

ASSOCIATE   PROFESSOR    OF  THE  SHEMITIC   LANGUAGES   AT  THE 
JOHNS   HOPKINS  UNIVERSITY. 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

743  and  745  Broadway 


COPYRIGHT  1880. 
By  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 


GRANT,  FAIEES  &  EODGERS, 

Electeotypees  and  Peinters, 

Philabelphia,  Pa. 


THIS  VOLUME 

IS 

INSCRIBED 

TO 

DANIEL   C.   OILMAN, 

President  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University, 

as  one  who  welcomes  that  new  era  of  thought  in  which 

its  author  had  hoped  to  be  a  worker,  and 

IN   RECOGNITION   OF  PERSONAL  AND 
OFFICIAL    RELATIONS. 


PUBJJSHERS'    NOTE. 


The  following  lectures  were  delivered  at  the  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  during  the  winter  of  1878-79,  before  a  general  audience. 

The  form  in  which  they  were  given  was  probably  not  that  in 
which  their  author  would  have  finally  embodied  his  researches,  or 
have  permanently  submitted  them  as  a  subject  of  scholarly  criticism. 

It  has  seemed,  however,  to  many  beside  the  publishers  of  this 
volume,  that  these  lectures  should  be  placed  before  a  larger  audience  ; 
not  simply  as  the  only  completed  work  left  by  a  scholar  of  very 
remarkable  independence  and  promise,  but  as  a  most  valuable  con- 
tribution to  the  study  to  which  his  life  was  devoted — the  reverent 
and  critical  investigation  of  the  History  and  Literature  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures.  It  is  entirely  certain  that  Professor  Murray's 
early  death,  occurring  but  a  few  days  after  the  closing  of  this 
course,  took  from  his  branch  of  learning  one  of  the  most  earnest 
and  able  students  it  has  counted  in  America. 

Before  the  publication  of  these  lectures,  it  was  necessary  to 
add  to  a  few  passages  brief  explanatory  notes,  verifications  of  ref- 
erences, transliterations,  &c.,  such  as  the  author  himself  would  have 
supplied  to  aid  the  general  reader  unacquainted  with  Oriental 
languages.  This  scholarly  service  has  been  very  kindly  performed 
for  the  volume  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  C.  H.  Toy,  who  has,  however,  in 
every  case,  affixed  his  initial  to  the  note  thus  furnished. 


CONTENTS, 


LECTURE   I. 

PAGE. 
ORIGIN  AND  HISTORY  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  PEOPLES.     IMPORTANCE 

OF  THE  STUDY   OF  THEIR  LANGUAGES  AND  LITERATURE,    .        I 

LECTURE   II. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  HEBREW  LANGUAGE  AND  EARLY  LITERATURE. 

COLLECTION   OF  THE  HEBREW  WRITINGS 34 

LECTURE    III. 

TITLES  OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES.  HISTORY  OF  THE  NAMES 
PSALM  AND  PSALTER.  LITERARY  AND  EDITORIAL  AR- 
RANGEMENT OF  THE  BOOKS  OF  THE  PSALTER.  INSCRIP- 
TIONS OF  THE  PSALMS 73 

LECTURE   IV. 

THEORIES  OF  MACCABEAN  AUTHORSHIP.     ANTIOCHUS  EPIPHANES 

AND  THE  MACCABEAN  ERA.      DAVIDIC  AUTHORSHIP,   .      .      .HO 

vii 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

LECTURE    V. 

PAGE. 
ORIGIN  AND   METHOD  OF  COLLECTION  OF  THE  DAVIDIC  TEMPLE 

BOOK.      DAVID  AS  A  POET I44 

LECTURE   VI. 

POST-EXILIC  COLLECTORS.  THE  GREAT  SYNAGOGUE.  FIRST 
AND  SECOND  BOOKS  OF  THE  PSALTER.  LYRICS  OF  THE  SONS 
OF  KORAH, 17s 

LECTURE   VII. 

SECOND  BOOK  OF  THE  PSALTER.  BALLAD  POETRY.  THE 
ANONYMOUS  PSALMS.  THE  VINDICTIVE  PSALMS.  NEHEMIAH. 
THIRD  BOOK  OF  THE  PSALTER.  LYRIC,  EPIC  AND  DIDACTIC 
POETRY.      SONGS   OF  ASAPH 209 

LECTURE  VIII. 

DRAMATIC  ART  AMONG  THE  SHEMITES.  TRAGEDY  AND  COMEDY. 
BOOK  OF  JOB.  THE  SONG  OF  SONGS.  FOURTH  BOOK  OF 
THE   PSALTER, 247 

LECTURE   IX. 

FIFTH  BOOK  OF  THE  PSALTER.  THE  SONGS  OF  DEGREES. 
COLLECTION  OF  THE  FIVE  BOOKS.  SHEMITIC  SONG  AND 
MUSIC.  MUSICAL  INSCRIPTIONS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  THE  MUSIC 
OF  THE  SECOND  TEMPLE, 281 


ORIGIN 


AND 


GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


LECTURE    I. 


As  the  curtain  rises  on  the  stage  of  history,  we  can 
just  descry  through  the  mists  of  the  early  dawning,  a 
Bedouin  people  dwelling  in  the  Petraean  uplands,  be- 
tween the  Bight  of  Akaba  and  the  Persian  Gulf. 
They  were  the  progenitors  of  perhaps  the  most 
unique  and  remarkable  people  whom  the  world  has 
produced ;  a  people  belonging  to  a  race  and  speech 
alien  to  our  own,  yet  to  whom  we  are  under  a  greater 
obligation  for  our  religion,  our  culture  and  our  civ- 
ilization, than  to  any  of  our  own  kin. 

It  was  the  beginnings  of  a  people  known  to  us 
under  the  unfortunate  and  misleading  name,  She- 
mitic,  given  them  by  Schlozer^  at  the  close  of  the 

»  A.  L.  Schlozer  in  his  article  on  the  Chaldeans  in  Eichhom's  Reper- 
torium    fur    biblische     und  morgenlandische  litteratur,  Part  8,  p.  i6i 

I 


2  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

last  century.  [Semitic  and  Semite,  now  so  much  in 
vogue  as  almost  to  be  good  usage,  are  survivals  of 
the  French  nomenclature  of  the  English  orientalists 
who  learned  Arabic  at  the  feet  of  De  Sacy,] 

It  seems  appropriate  at  the  opening  of  this  course 
of  lectures,  among  the  first,  if  I  mistake  not,  de- 
livered in  this  country  on  the  Shemitic  Languages 
and  Literature  on  the  purely  academic  side  and 
away  from  the  restrictions  inseparable  from  theo- 
logical teaching,  that  I  should  glance  briefly  and  in  a 
way  more  popular  than  is  possible  in  the  class-room, 
at  the  position  and  history  of  this  people,  the  exposi- 
tion of  one  of  whose  literatures  is  our  main  object. 

Of  course  the  first  question  naturally  arising  in  our 
minds  is  whence  and  how  came  this  people  to  Ara- 
bia ?  but  at  the  very  threshold  of  this  investigation 
we  are  met  by  problems  as  yet  unsolved,  for  whose 
solution  we  scarce  know  where  to  look.  The  me- 
thods by  which  we  trace  them  to  Arabia  are  too 
technical  for  popular  exposition ;  they  are  chiefly 
linguistic,  though  susceptible  of  as  high  a  degree  of 

(1781)  seems  to  speak  of  the  term  "  Shemitic"  as  if  he  were  its  inventor, 
and  its  use  in  that  article  is  the  earliest,  so  far  as  appears.  But  Eich- 
horn  himself  in  his  AUgemeine  Bibliothek  der  biblischen  litteratur,  vi. 
772  (1794),  claims  to  have  been  the  first  to  substitute  "Shemitic"  for 
''  Oriental "  (the  previous  designation  of  these  languages),  and  he  must 
have  known  of  Schlozer's  use  of  it.  It  was  through  Eichhorn  that  the 
term  gained  currency.     (T.) 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHE  MI  TIC  PEOPLE.  3 

proof  as  is  possible  outside  the  exact  sciences — but 
here  we  suddenly  lose  the  trail.  Do  we  inquire  of 
history,  it  is  voiceless,  for  history  had  not  yet  begun. 
Do  we  interrogate  their  native  traditions,  we  find 
them  confused  and  contradictory,  and  in  their  earliest 
form  bearing  evidence  of  being  loans  from  neigh- 
boring peoples  rather  than  of  native  growth.  Per- 
chance you  may  bethink  yourself  of  the  Jewish 
records,  and  ask  whether  there  be  not  in  them  some 
clue  through  the  maze.  These  fragments  of  the 
infant  history  of  the  world,  sacred  in  themselves  and 
hallowed  by  association,  no  one  who  hears  me  can 
lay  more  stress  on  than  myself  But  what  do  they 
mean  ?  What  are  those  strange  and  majestic  shapes 
thrown  by  the  brush  of  the  inspired  artist  athwart 
the  background  of  his  canvas  ?  Do  they  represent 
persons,  or  peoples,  or  countries  ?  Are  they,  as 
some  claim,  merely  types,  and  if  so,  are  these  types 
ethnic  or  moral  ?  Can  we  be  sure  that  we  have  all 
the  links  in  the  chain,  or  has  the  writer  chosen  only 
those  more  prominent  names  which  have  projected 
themselves  into  the  knowledge  of  his  own  time? 
This  is  not  the  place  nor  this  a  fit  occasion  to  take 
up  or  answer  these  questions.  They  belong  to  the 
special  problems  which  arise  in  discussing  the  Mo- 
saic literature.  I  merely  allude  to  them  as  questions 
not  yet  settled,  on  which  there  is  a  diversity  well- 


4  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

nigh  irreconcilable  between  scholars  of  equal  candor 
and  equal  learning. 

With  the  growing  light  thrown  on  the  ancient 
history  of  the  Orient  by  the  unearthing  of  its  de- 
parted civilizations,  we  may  hope  some  day  to  re- 
cover the  key  to  the  narratives  of  the  Genesis.  It 
is,  to  be  sure,  a  confession  of  ignorance,  but  not 
necessarily  of  despair,  when  the  Shemitic  scholar 
acknowledges  his  inability  to  decipher  as  yet  the 
character  in  which  these  records  are  written,  or  in- 
terpret them  in  a  way  which  will  make  them  a  sure 
norm  for  the  study  of  the  beginnings  of  the  race. 

The  native  tradition  of  the  other  Shemitic  peoples 
is  of  little  value.  That  of  the  Assyrian  tablets  is  the 
tradition  borrowed  from  a  people  alien  in  speech  and 
race,  who  had  their  homes  on  the  shores  of  the 
Caspian.^  The  native  traditions  of  the  Arameans 
have  been  completely  eroded  by  the  surging  breakers 
of  war  and  foreign  invasion,  which  since  the  earliest 
times  have  almost  ceaselessly  dashed  hither  and 
thither  across  their  river  uplands. 

Who  that  has  studied  them  can  give  credence  to 
the  legends  of  the  Koran  ?     It  is  time,  now  that  his- 

1  The  Accadians.  All  that  is  certainly  known  of  them  is  that  they 
came  from  a  mountain  district,  as  their  name  (=mountaineers)  imports ; 
their  original  home  (before  they  entered  Mesopotamia)  may  have  been 
in  the  South  Taurus  range,  or  in  the  North  Taurus  near  the  Caspian 
Sea.     (T.) 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  PEOPLE.  5 

torians  of  civilization  and  dilettante  biographers  have 
so  long  held  the  public  ear,  that  Arabic  scholars 
should  be  heard  on  the  character  of  Muhammed  and 
the  originality  of  his  message.  The  Arab  biographers 
but  half  conceal  under  their  laudation  of  him  as  of 
purest  lineage  from  the  bluest  blood  of  the  desert,  his 
descent  from  a  mongrel  tribe  of  traders — Qureish — 
formed  through  the  mixture  of  Arabs,  Jews,  perhaps 
even  Abyssinians,  (the  Abbasides  had  unmistakable 
negro  blood)  around  the  caravan  stations  at  Mecca. 
The  boy  Muhammed  learned  from  his  uncle  Waraka 
and  the  Jewish  relatives  of  his  mother  the  stories  of 
their  people.  The  prophet  of  Allah  only  reproduces 
them  in  the  Koran,  distorted  by  his  diseased  fancy, 
shaped  to  serve  the  ends  of  his  ambition  or  appetite, 
and  mingled  with  the  fables  of  the  people  among 
whom  he  dwelt. 

There  is  no  pre-Islamite  history  or  native  tra- 
dition of  the  North  Arabic  people.  The  Bedouins 
make  no  history,  and  the  native  traditions  of  their 
origin  have  disappeared  as  irrecoverably  as  the  tents 
of  which  one  of  their  poets  sings. — "  Yesterday  they 
gleamed  white  before  me,  but  now  are  they  vanished 
into  desert  air." 

Even  less  can  the  accounts  of  the  later  Arab 
chroniclers  lay  claim  to  be  used  in  serious  history ; 
they  are  merely  the  projection  of  the  century  im- 


6  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

mediately  preceding  Muhammed  on  a  canvas  they 
spanned  to  dimensions  learned  from  other  peoples. 
If  the  truth  were  known  it  would  appear  that  we  can 
not  ascertain  with  surety  even  the  names  of  the  Pro- 
phet's ancestors  at  the  second  remove,  so  you  may 
imagine  the  value  of  the  genealogies  of  their  epony- 
mous heroes  so  liberally  drawn  on  by  the  historians 
of  the  orient.  Shemitic  native  traditions  are  like  the 
prophetic  reed  on  which  scholars  have  only  leaned 
to  the  piercing  of  their  own  hands. 

Do  we  turn  to  philology  for  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  the  origin  of  the  Shemitic  people,  the 
reply  is  almost  equally  unsatisfactory.  As  I  have 
had  occasion  to  say  at  a  former  time  in  this  place, 
there  are  no  Shemitic  languages,  but  only  one  She- 
mitic language,  whose  various  dialects  differ  from  one 
another  hardly  as  much  as  do  the  dialects  of  the 
Greek.  After  eliminating  some  few  differences  of 
vocabulary  accidental  to  the  kinds  of  literature  in 
which  the  one  or  the  other  dialect  has  come  down  to 
us,  the  difference  between  the  most  widely  variant  of 
them  would  be  about  the  same  as  exists  in  our  own 
day  between  the  German  of  the  Hanoverian  heaths 
and  that  of  the'  Bavarian  highland,  or,  if  you  please, 
between  the  English  of  the  midland  and  the  border 
counties.  Of  these  dialects  the  Arabic  is  the  most 
interesting,  as  it  is  most  copious  and  most  character- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  PEOPLE.  7 

istically  Shemitic.  The  Hebrew,  which  is  more  com- 
monly studied  and  taken  as  the  type  of  the  language, 
is,  in  the  form  in  which  it  has  been  preserved  to 
us,  philologically  the  latest  and  least  characteristic. 
When  we  come  to  sift  and  compare  these  dialects,  we 
find  them  all  unmistakably  pointing  to  the  old  Arabic 
as  their  earliest  form,  to  the  Steppes  of  the  Nejd  ^ 
as  their  primeval  home.  But  there  they  stop,  and  in 
vain  do  we  seek  in  them  a  clue  to  lead  us  further. 

The  comparisons  drawn  and  made  so  much  of  by 
those  holding  briefs  for  the  primitive  unity  of  speech, 
between  the  Shemitic  and  our  own  family  of  language 
are  in  the  main  delusive,  being  founded  on  mere  ac- 
cordances of  sound  in  decayed  forms  of  one  family 
or  the  other — between  the  Latin  and  the  Hebrew  for 
example,  where  this  species  of  philology  has  most  run 
riot.  Of  grammatical  resemblance,  the  only  infallible 
test  of  relationship  in  language,  there  is  no  trace, 
as  there  seems  a  well-nigh  insuperable  barrier  be- 
tween the  original  Indo-European  with  its  mobile 
vowels  and  the  stiff  vowelless  Shemitic. 

The  evidence  on  one  side  or  the  other  is  simply 
not  in  a  condition  for  the  cautious  philologist  to  make 
use  of  No  doubt  in  the  end,  the  problem  of  the 
primitive  unity  of  the  Shemitic  and  Indo-European 
may  shape  itself  differently,  but  we  must  bear  in  mind 

*  The  Arabian  highland  stretching  toward  Babylonia.     (T.) 


8  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

that  for  the  present  the  trend  of  the  evidence  is  to 
prove  a  radical  diversity,  and  many  of  the  most  con- 
servative Shemitic  philologists,  as  Noldeke,  deny  the 
possibility  of  any  unity  of  origin  for  speeches  so 
inherently  dissimilar.  However  the  result  may  be, 
the  evidence  of  language  to  those  who  have  no  in- 
terest save  philology  at  stake,  does  not  now  point  to 
any  common  home,  where  as  has  been  fondly  believed 
Shemite  and  Aryan  dwelt  together,  does  7iot  enable 
us  to  trace  Shemitic  speech  back  to  some  more  prim- 
itive form.  If  we  glance  over  the  peoples  who  lay 
around  the  Shemites  as  they  appear  in  history,  it  will 
but  further  show  them  to  us  as  a  racial  oasis  in  their 
deserts,  a  waif  in  the  midst  of  alien  peoples.  Im- 
mediately on  the  north  in  the  Babylonian  lowlands 
and  at  the  river  mouths  was  a  Turanian  ^  people  akin 
to  the  European  Magyars  and  Fins  ;  further  north- 
ward along  the  upper  river  courses  lay  a  people 
whose  name  and  very  existence  was  unknown  to  us 

"^  The  term  "  Turanian"  (formed  from  Tur^  the  name  of  a  mythical 
personage  in  the  Persian  legends)  was  invented  by  Max  Miiller,  and  is 
■used  by  him  and  others  to  include  all  languages  except  those  of  the 
Indo-European,  Shemitic  and  Hamitic  (this  term  embracing  sub-She- 
mitic,  Egyptian  and  Libyan)  families — that  is,  almost  all  the  aggluti- 
nizing  and  monosyllabic  languages  of  the  world.  Others  confine  it  to  the 
agglutinizing  groups :  Ugro- Finnish,  Samoyed,  Turco-Tatar  and 
Tongous,  and  still  others  reject  it  altogether  as  meaningless  and  mis- 
leading. In  fact  it  does  not  in  itself  convey  either  a  geographical  or  a 
linguistic  meaning,  and  is  open  to  the  same  objections  as  the  name 
"  Shemitic."  Probably  the  author  here  uses  it  in  the  second  of  the 
above  senses,  in  which  the  Accadian  also  would  be  included.     (T.) 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHE  MI  TIC  PEOPLE.  g 

until  within  a  few  years,  their  antiquities  have  been 
unearthed  from  the  mounds  of  Karkhemish.  ^  The 
Mediterranean  sea-board  was  held  by  tribes  to  whom 
the  imagination  of  the  later  Shemitjc  inhabitants  has 
given  Titanic  proportions,  the  Anakim  and  Zamzum- 
mim — the  African  coast  was  held  by  a  Hottentot 
people,  at  a  later  time  pushed  southward  by  the  suc- 
cessive waves  of  immigration. 

Do  we  call  anthropology  to  our  aid  with  its 
measurements  of  the  skull  and  minute  investigation  of 
the  crinkle  of  the  hair  and  color  of  the  skin,  we  shall 
find  the  diversity  between  the  Shemites  and  their 
neighbors  even  far  more  deeply  seated  than  the 
variance  of  their  customs,  their  civilizations  and  their 
religions  had  a  priori  led  us  to  assume. 

Thus  we  may  say  with  accuracy  and  without  flinch- 
ing any  of  the  points  at  issue,  that  the  beginning  of 
Shemitic  history  is  concident  with  the  appearance  of 
the  Shemitic  people  in  Arabia.  Further  than  this  we 
cannot  venture  safely  with  the  clues  now  in  our 
hands.  I  do  not  however  wish  to  be  understood  as 
holding  with  Sprenger  and  the  later  Shemitic  eth- 
nologists that  the  Shemites   are  the   autochthonous 

^  Inscriptions  in  an  unknown  character  have  been  found  at  Hamath, 
Karkhemish  and  in  Asia  Minor.  The  character  is  usually  called  Hama- 
thite,  and  has  as  yet  defied  decipherment ;  almost  absolutely  nothing  is 
known  of  the  people  and  language  to  which  it  belonged.  See  the  publi- 
cations of  the  London  Society  of  Biblical  Archaeology.     (T.) 

I* 


10        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Bedouin  race  of  Arabia,  a  theory  assuming  the  whole 
point  at  issue.  My  philological  instinct  leads  me  to 
believe  that  there  are  some  few  ground  principles 
common  to  all  speech,  which  careful  investigation  will 
one  day  discover  and  establish.  It  is  for  the  Shemitic 
philologist  to  help  on  the  solution  by  sifting  out  in 
the  mass  of  phenomena  with  which  he  has  to  deal 
the  merely  accidental,  from  that  which  is  essential  and 
permanent.  I  also  believe  there  is  a  discoverable 
(though  not  yet  discovered)  bond  of  union  between 
the  Shemitic  and  the  other  peoples.  It  is  the  part  of 
the  student  of  Shemitic  civilization  to  distinguish 
what  is  characteristic  in  their  racial  features  and 
habits  of  mind  from  what  is  merely  the  outgrowth  of 
their  environment. 

The  first  step  in  every  science  is  to  stake  out  the 
boundaries  between  the  known  and  the  unknown,  and 
there  would  be  no  stimulus  to  further  work,  if  philology 
or  ethnology  unlocked  their  secrets,  save  to  the  most 
patient  research. 

Looking  out  now  from  this  vantage-ground  we  have 
gained  in  Arabia,  let  me  ask  you  to  follow  me  as  I 
cursorily  sketch  the  way  in  which  the  hither  Orient 
became  settled  by  the  Shemites.  It  seems  remarka- 
ble that  the  barren  steppes  of  Tartary  and  Arabia,  so 
alike  in  climate  and  in  natural  feature,  should  have 
been  the  officinm  of  the  two   great   peoples    of  the 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  PEOPLE.         I  I 

world.  We  are  as  yet  unable  to  trace  the  reason  for 
the  strange  seething  and  upheavals  in  Central  Asia, 
whose  resultant  was  the  outpouring  over  Europe  at 
longer  or  shorter  intervals  of  the  successive  waves  of 
Aryan  immigration.  It  is  in  precisely  a  similar  and 
equally  mysterious  way  that  the  Western  Orient  has 
been  Shemitized  from  Arabia. 

The  most  remarkable  of  these  Shemitic  movements 
is  one  which  has  occurred  within  comparatively  a 
few  centuries  and  to  which  before  the  close  of  this 
lecture  I  shall  have  occasion  to  allude. 

The  most  interesting  question  at  the  present  in 
Shemitic  philology  is  the  relation  between  the  She- 
mitic and  a  group  of  dialects  which  some  one  in  a 
luckless  hour  dubbed  Hamitic.  By  Hamitic  is  meant 
the  Old  Egyptian  and  its  outgrowth  the  vulgar  dia- 
lects of  the  Coptic;  further  the  dialects  of  the  peoples 
who  since  the  earliest  times  have  lain  along  the  edge 
of  the  Sahara  from  Syrtis  to  the  Atlas,  just  back 
of  the  fringe  of  various  civilizations,  Carthaginian, 
Latin  and  Arabic,  which  had  successively  held  the 
Mediterranean  seaboard  of  Africa.  These  dialect.T 
may  without  hesitation  be  placed  under  one  head  and 
regarded  as  a  single  group.  When  we  come  to  com- 
pare them  with  the  Shemitic  we  are  at  once  struck 
with  so  many  apparent  resemblances,  lying  as  it  were 
on  their  very  surface,  that  we  are  fain  to  regard  them 


12        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

as  Shemitic  dialects.  When  we  further  investigate 
their  nominal  and  verbal  formation  we  find  such  deep- 
seated  diversity  as  to  force  us  to  an  entire  remodeling 
of  our  theories  of  Shemitic  structure,  should  they  be 
admitted  as  well-authenticated  members  of  this  group. 
I  think  you  cannot  fail  to  see  how  radical  will  be  the 
reshaping  of  history  if  Egyptian  letters  and  civilization 
be  proven  to  be  outgrowths  of  the  Shemitic  stock. 
But  we  must  turn  away  from  the  too  tempting  vista ; 
the  question  still  sways  in  air.  Shemitic  scholarship, 
to  its  shame  be  it  said,  has  left  this  problem  of  such 
supreme  importance  unwrought,  for  discussions  as  to 
technical  minutiae  of  the  Jewish  schoolmen,  which  it 
is  a  wonder  can  be  of  interest  to  any  occidental  mind. 
If  the  result  show  a  connection  between  the  She- 
mitic and  the  so  called  Hamitic,  the  Hamitic  must  be 
regarded  as  the  earliest  surge  of  the  Shemitic  migra- 
tions passing  away  from  the  parental  home,  before 
there  had  become  fixed  and  crystalized  in  the  She- 
mitic those  linguistic  features  so  characteristic  of  it  at 
a  later  day,  and  acquiring  from  the  tribes  they  found 
in  the  Nile  valley  those  Nigritian  features  which  have 
led  many  to  assign  the  Egyptian  to  the  African  dia- 
lects. In  other  words,  the  Hamitic  will  only  be  a 
species  of  Pre-Shemitic} 

1  More  exactly  :  one  branch  of  the  primitive  Hamitic-Shemitic  stem, 
the  other  branch  being  the  Shemitic.    (T.) 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  PEOPLE.         I  3 

Leaving  this  for  future  inquiry  and  turning  now  to 
the  migrations  of  the  people  recognized  as  Shemitic, 
we  see  first  the  invasion  of  the  Euphrates  valley  at  a 
period  not  prior  to  the  year  3000  before  our  era. 
We  have  now-a-days  too  many  Oriental  chronologies 
to  set  much  confidence  in  any  of  them ;  the  eloquent 
satire  of  Macaulay  on  Hindu  chronology  in  his  Mem- 
oranda on  Indian  Education,  would  be  apropos  to  the 
Berosian  dynasties  with  their  thousands  and  ten 
thousands  of  years.  We  can  easily  understand  how 
the  rich  reaches  of  river  bottom,  which  until  this 
day  make  Babylonia  one  of  the  gardens  of  the  Lord, 
early  attracted  the  Arab  Bedouin  across  the  narrow 
rim  of  desert  which  was  their  only  protection  ;  how 
the  commerce  of  the  Indies  in  its  earliest  trade  line 
up  the  Persian  Gulf  tempted,  as  it  has  done  almost 
five  thousand  years  later,  Arab  pirates  to  lurk  along 
the  shores  and  infest  the  river  mouths.  We  must  not 
conceive  of  any  sudden  conquest  of  the  Accadian 
inhabitants  ;  year  by  year  the  Bedouin  raided  deeper 
into  the  land — year  by  year  the  pirate  fleets  pressed 
further  up  the  rivers  until  they  became  strong  enough 
to  seize  the  reins  of  government.  On  the  earliest  in- 
scriptions the  Shemitic  element  is  but  the  ruling  caste 
among  a  people  Turanian  in  speech,  in  manners  and 
in    religioa^       The    welding    together   of   the   two 

1  The  Accadians  and  the  Sumerians,  who  were  probably  two  tribes  of 


14        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

peoples  came  slowly,  and  at  a  later  period  seems  far 
from  perfect — in  fact  there  are  doubts  whether  the 
population  of  Babylonia  ever  became  homogeneous. 
In  this  process  the  Shemitic  element  lost  well-nigh  all 
save  their  language ;  they  acquired  from  their  more 
cultured  subjects  their  civilization  and  religion.  So  it 
comes  to  pass  that  when  the  North  Shemites  begin  to 
emigrate  from  Babylonia,  which  had  become  a  new 
centre  for  them,  they  carry  away  with  their  Shemitic 
speech  Turanian  mythology,  Turanian  civilization  and 
Turanian  manners.  Therefore  it  is,  I  have  said  at 
the  beginning  of  this  lecture,  that  much  of  the 
Shemitic  tradition  is  not  of  native  growth.  We  find 
among  the  Arab  Bedouin  of  the  present  day,  who 
have  remained  in  the  old  homes,  customs  and  beliefs 
more  characteristically  Shemitic  than  those  disclosed 
to  us  by  the  very  earliest  of  the  North  Shemitic 
monuments. 

Long  ere  the  Shemitic  invaders  had  gained  the 
mastery  in  Babylonia  the  more  hardy  spirits  began 
pushing  up  the  river  valleys,  and  joined  doubtless  by 
nomad  bands  who  had  come  through  the  desert,  they 
dispossessed  the  feeble  upland  folk  and  laid  the 
foundations  of  the  Aramaic  people. 

the  same  people,  and  have  probably  left  traces  of  themselves  in  a  good 
many  of  the  proper  names  of  that  region,  among  others,  in  the  names 
Tigris,  Euphrates  and  Ur  (Abraham's  city).  See  Lenormant's  La 
langue primitive  de  la  Chaldee.    (T.) 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  PEOPLE.  I  5 

The  peculiarities  of  Aramaic  speech  have  been  the 
peg  on  which  the  school  who  endeavor  to  trace  a 
Shemitic  dispersion  from  Central  Asia  have  hung 
their  beliefs.  Their  theory  is  that  in  the  Shemitic 
dispersions  the  Arameans  were  a  waif  who  tarried 
behind  in  the  hill  country  while  the  main  body 
pushed  forward  into  Arabia.  The  testimony  of 
language  will  however,  I  think,  disprove  convincingly 
any  such  origin  of  the  Aramaic  people ;  if  it  be  of 
any  value,  it  shows  that  the  Aramaic  possesses,  in 
common  with  the  older  Shemitic,  forms  which  can 
only  be  explained  by  a  prolonged  sojourn  in  Arabia, 
and  a  later  attrition  by  coming  into  contact  with  the 
Turanian  people  in  Babylonia. 

The  Arameans  were  traders  and  adventurers ;  the 
mart  they  founded  at  Nineveh  first  rivalled  and  then 
surpassed  the  capital  of  their  older  brethren  further 
down  the  rivers,  while  the  wars  of  a  later  day  between 
Assyria  and  Babylon  were  an  internecine  struggle  for 
the  control  of  the  trade  lines.  As  the  India  trade 
passed  gradually  to  the  Himyarite  settlements  on  the 
south  coast  of  Arabia,  the  Euphrates  valley  lost  its 
wealth,  its  power  and  its  prestige,  and  fell  a  prey  to 
the  Aryan  hordes  who  had  been  long  hovering  along 
its  Eastern  frontier.  Never  must  we  forget  the  debt 
of  obligation  which  civilization  owes  to  the  Arameans; 
pressing  into  Asia  Minor  through  their  mountain  de- 


I  6        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

files  they  early  seized  the  coasts  and  islands  of  the 
Egean.  It  is  possible  they  were  in  Greece  before  the 
Hellens  reached  there.  It  is  they  and  not  the 
Phenicians  who  are  the  fabled  Cadmus  {Q,adma,Yja.'=X- 
ern  people)  who  brought  us  our  letters.  It  was  they 
whose  science,  crude  as  it  was,  kindled  the  torch 
which  in  the  hands  of  the  Greeks  was  to  blaze  into  a 
flame;  from  their  rude  art  it  was  that  the  Greeks 
learned  the  elements  of  their  magnificent  architec- 
ture. ^  Within  our  own  era  they  have  done  a  work 
for  civilization  the  credit  of  which  has  been  given  to 
others,  scarcely  less  precious  than  that  of  the  early 
time.  When  the  Greek  learning  fled  from  the  ecclesi- 
astical strife  and  civil  disorder  of  the  lower  empire, 
it  largely  took  refuge  in  the  Aramaic  university  of 
Edessa,  than  where  the  Aristotelian  philosophy  has 

^  It  is  necessary  to  distinguish  carefully  between  the  Arameans  and  the 
Assyrians,  two  peoples  dwelling  side  by  side  in  the  Tigris-Euphrates 
valley,  yet  quite  distinct  in  language,  character  and  achievements.  It 
was  the  Assyrians  that  founded  Nineveh,  and  became  the  teachers  of  the 
Greeks  in  architecture  (as  may  reasonably  be  inferred  from  the  similarity 
between  the  architectural  remains  found  at  Mycenas  and  Nineveh).  It 
may  be  that  the  Greek  letters  were  derived  from  the  Arameans,  and  that 
they  early  penetrated  to  the  western  sea ;  but  this  early  history  is  obscure, 
and  we  shall  have  to  wait  for  the  results  of  further  investigation  and  dis- 
covery before  forming  an  opinion  on  the  relations  between  the  East  and 
the  West  in  the  pre-historic  time.  Compare  the  author's  remarks  p.  14, 
(T.) 


•     J 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHE  MI  TIC  PEOPLE.  I  J 

been  nowhere  cherished  by  more  loving  hands. 
Syrian  scholars  were  the  masters  of  the  untrained 
Arabs  of  the  armies  of  Islam,  and  it  is  merely  what 
they  learned  from  them  that  the  Arabs  carried  to 
Spain,  to  kindle  there  the  new  learning  and  to  open 
the  Renascence.  Dr.  Draper  gives  to  the  torch- 
bearer  the  credit  which  belongs  to  the  flame.  The 
native  Arabs  have  neither  a  creative  nor  a  scientific 
mind.  Count  the  great  names  who  in  the  middle 
ages  made  Arabic  science  illustrious,  and  you  will 
find  that  almost  without  exception,  in  the  orient  they 
are  Arameans  or  Persians — in  the  Occident  Spanish 
Jews  or  Moors. 

But  we  must  pass  from  the  Arameans  with  a  single 
word  further.  They  held  the  upper  courses  of  the 
Euphrates  and  Tigris  until  they  were  obliterated  by 
new  incursions  from  Arabia  in  the  sixth  century  of 
our  era.  Their  dialect  was  with  its  slight  inflections 
the  English  of  the  Shemitic  family:  as  the  trade- 
speech  of  the  orient  it  had  by  the  second  century  be- 
fore our  era,  displaced  all  the  kindred  North  Shemitic 
dialects.  It  is  of  interest  as  being  in  its  Galilean  pa- 
tois the  mother  tongue  of  Christ  and  his  first  follow- 
ers— the  speech  in  which  thought  the  men  who  wrote 
the  New  Testament  in  Greek.  It  is  preserved  to  us 
carved  on  the  Palmyrene  monuments,  hewn  in  the 
Petrean  rocks,  treasured  in  a  voluminous  literature, 


1 8        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

still  spoken  in  half  a  dozen  corrupt  jargons  through 
the  Lebanon  and  in  Persia. 

At  a  time  no  doubt  somewhat  later,  as  the  river 
valleys  became  overcrowded,  there  pushed  out  into 
the  lowland  the  first  spur  of  the  Canaanite  people 
who  took  possession  of  the  Mediterranean  seaboard, 
and  are  known  to  us  by  the  name  given  them  in  the 
Occident,  Phenicians.  They  were  the  traders  of  the 
early  times,  whose  colonies  formed  a  Hansabund 
across  the  then  known  world,  from  the  shores  of  the 
Euxine  to  the  tin  mines  of  Cornwall.  The  Carthage, 
"the  new  city,"  founded  by  them  to  command  the 
African  trade,  has  to  most  of  us,  from  school  days, 
been  the  chief  representative  of  their  greatness.  The 
study  of  their  mythology  and  art  on  which  so  much 
stress  is  laid  in  these  days,  will  prove  of  small  value, 
as  both  were  borrowed  by  them  from  the  Assyrians ; 
but  the  investigation  of  their  political  institutions  and 
commercial  code  is  of  value  even  in  America,  which 
has  not  advanced  so  greatly  beyond  them. 

It  is  an  apothegm  come  of  late  into  most  histories 
of  the  world,  that  the  Shemitic  peoples  were  not 
traders  or  colonists.  Ground  is  gained  for  this  hy- 
pothesis by  excluding  from  the  Shemitic  peoples  the 
Phenicians.  The  only  reason  for  this  exclusion  is  a 
faulty  interpretation  of  certain  genealogies  of  the 
Genesis,  but  the  Phenicians  cannot  be  kept  out ;  they 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  PEOPLE.         1 9 

are  too  plainly  marked  as  of  the  Shemitic  type  to  be 
excluded  by  any  ex-cathedra  judgment.  Even  if  they 
were  excluded,  it  is  hard  to  see  what  vantage  the 
holders  of  this  view  would  gain,  with  the  colonies  and 
trade  of  so  clearly  Shemitic  peoples  as  the  Arameans 
and  Himyarites  still  unaccounted  for. 

The  second  Shemitic  migration  into  the  lowland 
was  that  of  the  Palestinian  tribes,  of  whom  hardly 
more  is  preserved  to  us  than  their  names  and  some 
few  words  in  the  Hebrew  writings. 

The  third  and  last  was  that  of  the  Terahites,  who 
entered  the  lowland  about  2000  b.  c,  long  after  it  was 
settled  by  the  kindred  tribes  who  had  preceded  them. 
The  great  mass  of  these  settled  down  in  Canaan ;  only 
a  small  fragment,  attracted  by  the  inducements  held 
out  by  the  Hyksos,  pass  on,  at  a  later  day,  into  the 
pasture  land  of  the  Eastern  Nile  Delta.  With  their 
expulsion  begins  the  more  specific  Israelite  history, 
which  I  will  take  up  briefly  when  I  speak  of  their  lit- 
erature in  the  next  hour.  Bear  in  mind  one  thing 
rarely  noted,  that  the  name  Hebrew  {^Ibri,  of  which,  by 
the  way,  we  have  no  satisfactory  solution)  belongs  in 
common  to  all  the  Terahite  people  ;  there  is  no  reason 
for  applying  it  to  the  Israelites  any  more  than  to  the 
Edomites  or  Ishmaelite  Arabs.  Good  English  usage 
goes  for  something  even  in  nomenclature,  and  so  we 
continue  to  say  Hebrew,  Hebrew  people,  and  Hebrew 


20        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

writings.  But  if  we  wish  to  be  exact  we  must  say 
Israel.  Hebrew  is,  as  I  have  said,  the  name  of  the 
whole  Abrahamic  people ;  Jew  but  a  name  of  a  single 
Israelite  tribe. 

During  the  thousand  or  fifteen  hundred  years 
through  which  the  North  Shemitic  countries  were  be- 
ing settled,  there  was  taking  place  a  similar,  though 
far  less  important  movement,  to  the  southward.  At  a 
period  somewhat  subsequent  to  the  Shemitic  settle- 
ment of  the  Euphrates  valley,  Arab  settlers  reached 
the  shores  of  the  Indian  Ocean  and  became  the 
nucleus  of  the  Himyarite  people.  Like  their  breth- 
ren, the  Phenicians,  they  were  adventurous  traders 
and  mariners,  and  at  an  early  day  succeeded  in  divert- 
ing the  Indian  trade  from  the  Persian  Gulf.  Their 
little  skiffs,  following  the  favorable  turn  of  the  Mon- 
soon, carried  rapidly  and  safely  the  spices  and  ivories 
of  India  from  the  Malabar  coast  to  their  own  ports, 
whence  they  were  conveyed  by  caravan  to  Egypt  and 
the  Phenician  distributing  depots  for  the  Occident. 
The  huge  and  shapeless  ruins  which  are  found 
throughout  Yemen  attest  their  being  a  wealthy  and 
magnificent  people.  The  Greeks,  misinterpreting  their 
name  Himyar,  called  the  sea  on  which  they  lived  and 
traded  'EpuQp-q,  "  The  Red."  ^ 

1  Himyar,  the  pretended  eponym  of  the   Himyarites,  is  a  legendary 
person  who,  an  uncertain  number  of  centuries  before  the  beginning  ol 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHE  MI  TIC  PEOPLE.         21 

At  a  comparatively  late  time,  probably  not  many 
centuries  before  our  era,  there  was  an  emigration  of 
Himyarites  across  the  Bab-el-Mandab,     ^  »^\J\  -y   y" 
("  Gate  of  Tears,"  Gate  of  Sighs,  lead-  - 
ing  into  the  dangerous,  narrow  sea,  feared  till  the  pre- 
sent day  by  mariners,)  into  Africa.    Their  name,  Geez, 
"The  Free,"  leads  us  to  suppose  they  may  have  been 
political    refugees   from  Himyarite    authority,  which 
we  know  was  none  of  the  mildest.      Christianized, 
but  little  improved,  in  the  fourth  century  by  Greek 
missionaries,  they  have  become  known  to  the  Occi- 
dent  as  Ethiopic.      Of  late   there    has   been   much 
interest  shown  for  them  in  connection  with  the  Eng- 
lish Expedition  against  Theodore.     Their  dialect  is 
linguistically  of  great  importance  for  Shemitic  pho- 
nology, but  their  meagre    literature   of  homilies  and 
translations  is  devoid  of  interest. 

Beyond  the  Ethiopic,  probably  stretching  to  the 
south  of  the  Equator,  were  a  number  of  negro  dia- 
lects partly  Shemitized  through  contact  with  the 
Ethiopians,  known  as  Sub-Shemitic.  These  dialects 
have  been  first  brought  to  notice  by  English  and 
German  explorers  or  missionaries  during  the  present 

our  era,  is  said  to  have  raised  his  tribe  to  pre-eminence  among  the 
Sabean  people,  and  to  have  founded  the  famous  and  powerful  Himyaritic 
kingdom,  which  continued  till  its  overthrow  by  the  Abyssinians  in  the 
sixth  century  after  Christ.  The  name  is  somewhat  similar  in  form  and 
sound  to  an  Arabic  word  meaning  "  red."     (T.) 


2  2        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

century,  so  their  extent  and  peculiarities  are  as  yet 
imperfectly  understood. 

Thus  we  have  glanced  over  the  migrations  of  the 
Shemitic  peoples  up  to  the  beginning  of  our  era.  A 
view  of  the  map  will  show  the  territory  occupied  by 
them  as  a  somewhat  irregular  parallelogram  between 
the  Indian  Ocean  on  t-he  south,  the  Persian  Gulf  and 
the  Tigris  on  the  east,  the  Taurus  on  the  north,  and 
the  Mediterranean  and  the  Red  Sea  on  the  west.  You 
will  observe  that  Arabia  covers  at  least  two-thirds 
of  this.  Beyond  these  hmits  the  Shemitic  people 
save  in  the  case  of  the  feeble  rim  of  refugees  across 
the  Bab-el-Mandab,  do  not  seem  to  have  spread  save 
sporadically ;  the  Phenician  colonies  were  no  more 
than  trading  posts,  and  the  Arameans  were  early 
pressed  back  out  of  their  settlements  on  the  Egean. 
This  peculiarly  Shemitic  territory  is  no  larger  than 
European  Russia — a  narrow  stage  on  which  have 
been  enacted  some  of  the  grandest  scenes  of  the 
world's  drama. 

No  sketch  however,  of  the  Shemitic  nation,  can  be 
complete  without  noticing  the  most  far-reaching  of 
their  migrations,  that  strange  movement  within  our 
own  era,  by  which  the  oldest  of  their  peoples  sud- 
denly burst,  sword  in  hand,  from  their  deserts,  to 
change  the  faith  and  the  culture  of  half  the  civilized 
world.     The   beginnings    of  this    movement  can  be 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  PEOPLE.         23 

traced  back  to  a  period  shortly  after  the  opening  of 
our  era,  when  the  change  of  trade-h'nes  reduced  the 
resources  of  the  people  of  Yemen.  The  Ghassanites 
and  Tayites/  severally  the  frontier  people  of  the 
Roman  and  Persian  power,  who  had  to  bear  the  brunt 
of  every  attack,  were  South  Arabic  peoples  who  first 
reached  the  Syrian  frontiers  in  the  third  century  of 
our  era.  The  movement  continued  with  gathering 
volume  during  the  next  two  centuries.  Shortly  before 
Muhammed,  a  Himyarite  tribe  had  with  difficulty 
been  expelled  from  Mecca.  It  was  as  a  sort  of  neu- 
tral umpire,  between  two  warring  clans  of  the  South, 
who  had  seized  Medina,  that  the  prophet  was  called 
thither.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  Arab 
conquest  was  due  primarily,  either  to  Muhammed  or 
to  Islam.  He  was  a  child  of  fortune,  whose  faith, 
believed  in  and  often  taught  before  him,  unheeded,  by 
men  of  greater  genius  and  purer  character  than  his 
own,  was  proclaimed  just  as  the  time  had  grown  ripe, 
and  became  a  rallying  cry  through  which  the  Bedouin, 
hitherto  possessing  no  common  centre,  were  united. 
Mayhap  he  hastened  the  bursting  of  the  storm,  but 
even  without  him  the  storm  would  soon  have  broken. 
I  wish  to  impress  on  your  mind  that  the  movements 
which  led  to  the  re-peopling  of  the  Orient  in  the  sixth 

1  The  Ghassanites  dwelt  at  Bosra  in  Syria,  and  the  Tayites  near  the 
mountains  Aja  and  Salma.     (T.) 


24        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

century  of  our  era,  were  primarily  national,  precisely 
the  same  in  kind  with  those  which  long  ages  before, 
had  given  it  its  first  Shemitic  population.  Omar, 
Abu-Bakr  and  the  shrewder  minds  who  controlled 
the  Prophet,  succeeded  in  turning  his  somewhat 
variegated  revelations  to  good  account.  The  sudden 
military  success  of  the  Bedouin  need  not  surprise  us ; 
the  Roman  Empire  had  long  out-lived  its  day ;  rent 
by  dissensions,  and  rotten  with  corruption,  it  was 
shivered  by  the  first  impact  of  the  fresh  blood  of  the 
desert.  Within  scarce  fifty  years  from  the  death  of 
the  Orthodox  Caliphs,  the  Arabs  had  conquered 
almost  all  the  countries  of  the  Mediterranean,  which 
it  had  taken  the  Latin  legionaries  and  administrators 
centuries  to  subdue  and  order.  As  little  need  the 
success  of  Islam  be  a  surprise ;  the  Orient  had  grown 
weary  of  being  harried  by  the  strifes  of  warring  sec- 
taries, and  torn  asunder  by  discordant  ecclesiastics 
who  had  almost  forgotten  there  was  a  God  in  their 
endless  discussions  as  to  His  nature  and  persons — 
the  Greek  dialectics  of  Alexandria  and  Byzantium, 
confused  minds  susceptible  only  of  a  tangible  and 
simple  creed.  So  it  was  that  a  large  part  of  the 
Orient  was  ready  without  compulsion  and  without 
persecution  to  accept  the  simpler  confession  and 
ritual  of  Islam.  That  the  Arabs  were  persecutors 
cannot  be  doubted,  but  their  faith  would  never  have 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SHE  MI  TIC  PEOPLE. 


25 


been  so  successful  had  there  not  been  a  preparedness 
for  it  in  the  people  they  subdued.  I  hope,  if  occa- 
sion offer,  at  some  future  time  to  speak  of  the  rise  of 
the  Saracen  power ;  we  cannot  now  pause  to  speak 
of  it.  Unused  to  rule  any  save  the  simple  children 
of  the  desert,  untrained  in  the  arts  of  government, 
their  hands  were  too  feeble  to  grasp  the  sceptre  of 
the  world's  empire,  which  had  fallen  to  them.  The 
dynasties  of  the  Omeyades  and  Abbasides  furnish  a 
black  succession  of  voluptuaries  and  tyrants,  hardly 
redeemed  by  the  genius  of  a  Maimun  or  the  piety  of 
an  Omar  II.  The  pretorian  band  of  Turkish  mer- 
cenaries first  called  in  by  the  Caliphs  to  protect  them 
from  the  indignation  of  their  oppressed  and  outraged 
subjects,  speedily  became  strong  enough  to  seize  the 
califate  to  themselves,  and  after  four  thousand  years 
the  control  of  the  Orient  passed  back  into  the  hands 
of  the  Turanians  who  held  it  at  the  very  dawn  of  its 
history.  The  Arab  language,  however,  maintained 
itself,  and  has  been  an  ever  increasing  power  in  the 
East.  It  is  one  of  the  most  graceful  and  forcible  of 
civilized  tongues — the  mother  tongue  of  millions  of 
people,  and  commonly  spoken  from  the  pillars  of 
Hercules  to  the  wall  of  China,  from  the  shores  of 
the  Caspian  to  the  equator.  Travelers  tell  us  that 
both  on  the  North  and  South,  it  is  still  spreading.  It 
has  a  literature  more  considerable  than  that  of  any 


26        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS.       . 

occidental  nation,  covering  all  branches  of  human 
thought  and  endeavor,  in  itself  of  great  value  and 
interest  to  western  scholars.  There  has  been  scarcely 
a  time  in  the  history  of  the  Shemitic  dialects  when 
they  could  so  ill  as  now  be  classed  under  "  ancient 
languages  and  literature," 

After  this  imperfect  and  hasty  sketch  of  the  She- 
mitic people,  let  me  in  conclusion  say  a  word  as  to 
the  proper  position  of  the  study  of  the  Shemitic  lan- 
guages in  an  University  course  of  instruction. 

Of  chief  importance  is  this  study  from  the  stand- 
point of  Philology.  No  philology  worthy  of  the  name 
is  exhausted  by  the  study  and  teaching  of  a  single 
language,  or  family  of  languages.  Philology  is  an 
investigation  into  the  phenomena  of  all  articulate 
thought.  As  the  geologist  traces  through  his  rock 
strata  the  growth  of  the  earth,  as  the  biologist  follows 
through  his  orders  the  development  of  life,  so  it  is  the 
task  of  the  philologist  to  trace  through  the  various 
languages  of  the  world,  the  origin  and  development 
of  that  most  characteristic,  yet  most  recondite  faculty 
of  the  human  race — speech.  One  cannot  wonder  that 
of  late  years  what  is  called  comparative  philology 
has  been  in  growing  disrepute.  Even  as  pursued  by 
the  wiser  scholars  it  has  been  founded  almost  entirely 
upon  the  observation  of  the  phenomena  of  our  own 
family,  and  so  has  broken  down  or  proved  inadequate. 


STUDY  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES.        2/ 

when  brought  face  to  face  with  the  larger  phenomena 
of  speech.  The  old  adage  of  "  one  language — no 
language,"  is  being  verified  as  to  many  of  its  hasty- 
generalizations  which  are  proving  too  narrow  even 
for  Indo-Germanic  structure.  Of  course  in  our  day 
it  would  be  folly  for  any  philologist  to  take  all  lan- 
guage as  his  province,  or  even  to  hope  to  master  a 
single  family.  It  is  only  by  most  patient  painstaking 
investigation  and  analysis  of  the  different  dialects  by 
many  different  scholars,  that  we  can  ever  hope  to 
reach  the  ultimate  facts  upon  which  may  be  built  up 
a  synthesis  of  enduring  value  and  truth  for  all  speech. 
Next  of  kin  to  our  own  family  stands  the  Shemitic 
as  the  second  great  language  of  the  civilized  peoples  ; 
its  structure,  composed  solely  of  consonantal  elements, 
marvelously  compact  and  singularly  unique,  has  on 
the  surface  apparently  no  analogy  in  our  own  family. 
The  first  problem  for  serious  philology  to  decide  is 
the  relation  between  these  two  families.  It  is  to  be 
the  crucial  test  of  the  value  of  philological  methods. 
If  they  are  unequal  to  solving  and  settling  the  rela- 
tions of  languages  so  contiguous,  contemporaneous 
through  well  nigh  six  thousand  years,  and  easily 
accessible  in  a  voluminous  literature,  we  may  well 
despair  of  any  success  with  the  outlying  and  ob- 
scurer families.  This  investigation  involves  as  well 
questions  of  even  more  far-reaching  importance.     If 


28        ORIGTN  AND  GR'OWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

in  the  several  analyses  of  the  Shemitic  and  Indo- 
European  it  be  found  that  their  ultimate  elements 
and  methods  are  so  inherently  dissimilar  as  to  pre- 
clude not  only  the  development  of  one  from  the  other, 
but  even  from  a  common  stock,  it  will  create  an  ar- 
gument against  an  original  unity  of  human  speech, 
and  hence  a  priori  against  an  original  unity  of  the 
human  race.  If  the  present  apparent  diversity  be 
proved  superficial  on  investigation,  there  will  doubt- 
less be  disclosed  early  methods  of  formation  enabling 
us  more  clearly  to  see  the  principle  of  human  speech 
underlying  the  now  utterly  discordant  mass  of 
spoken  language.  No  larger  investigation,  however, 
can  be  of  value  without  an  accurate,  and,  as  far  as 
may  be,  exhaustive  acquaintance  with  the  several  lan- 
guages at  issue. 

In  scarce  any  field  are  there  more  problems 
lying  unwrought  whose  working  promises  so  rich 
results.  The  language  of  the  mighty  empires  of  the 
Euphrates,  unearthed  during  this  century,  from  the 
mounds  of  Nineveh,  stands  patiently  waiting  under 
the  indignities  it  suffers  at  prentice  hand  of  tyros,  for 
some  scholar  to  bring  a  master  key  to  its  arcana. 
What  people  carved  the  inscriptions  of  Petra  ?  What 
is  the  clue  through  the  Hamathite  characters  ?  What 
the  interpretation  of  the  Himyarite  monuments  ? 
What  is  the  origin  of  the  written  character  become 


STUDY  OF  THE  SHE  MI  TIC  LANGUAGES.         29 

ours  by  later  inheritance  from  the  Shemite  ?  These 
are  but  a  tithe  of  the  opening  problems  in  which  one 
need  tread  no  hackneyed  round,  but  may  strike  out 
for  himself  in  unknown  fields  as  a  discoverer.  Or 
come  to  the  trodden  ground  of  the  better  known 
dialects,  none  of  which,  not  even  the  Hebrew,  studied 
one  is  oft  fain  to  say  these  eighteen  hundred  years 
to  small  purpose,  has  been  thoroughly  investigated. 
He  will  be  doing  original  work,  deserving  well  of 
philology,  who  collects  all  the  phenomena  of  even  the 
smallest  of  them  in  a  scientific  grammar  or  glossary. 

But  philological  investigation  can  not  proceed  far 
without  the  aid  of  the  literary  instinct ;  it  goes  halting 
through  an  arid  waste  of  logomachy  unless  there  be 
in  the  literatures  studied  inherent  value  and  interest. 
Shemitic  literature  is  of  interest  to  the  occidental 
student,  and  in  what  I  have  to  say  of  it  I  exclude  the 
Israelitish  writings,  which  I  shall  speak  of  in  a  subse- 
quent hour. 

First  of  all,  as  pure  literature.  Its  style  (so  essen- 
tially different  from  that  of  most  Aryan  peoples), 
should  be  of  interest  to  us,  as  our  language,  under  the 
influence  of  the  English  Bible,  has,  to  a  degree  of 
which  many  are  unconscious,  been  Shemitized.  The 
poetry  of  the  Bedouin,  sprung  from  their  transparent 
air  and  long  reaches  of  desert,  lacks,  perhaps,  that 
perfect  form  and  workmanship  in  which  the  Greeks 


30        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

are  masters  of  the  world.  But  in  what  hes  nearer  to 
the  essence  of  true  poetry,  the  power  to  paint  nature 
and  gather  in  a  single  word  the  manifold  expression 
of  earth  and  sky,  it  is  approached  by  no  other  litera- 
ture. But  the  very  analytic  character  of  the  Shemitic 
mind  which  gives  such  beauty  to  the  minute  pictures 
of  their  poetry,  is  a  disadvantage  to  their  prose  style. 
This  is  broad,  and  loses  in  its  mass  of  detail  the  syn- 
thetic brevity  and  clearness  of  statement  which,  to  the 
better  taste  of  the  Aryans,  is  essential  to  good  style.  If 
read  at  all  with  interest  it  must  be  for  ends  other  than 
literary,  and  chief  of  these  is  the  historical.  It  is  but 
little  understood  how  much  of  history,  and  to  us  most 
interesting  history,  is  contained  solely  in  Shemitic  lit- 
erature. The  traditions  of  the  beginning  of  the  Tura- 
nian people,  and  the  history  of  the  powers  who  ruled 
the  civilized  world  from  the  twentieth  to  the  eighth 
century  before  our  era  is  stamped  on  the  Assyrian 
tablets;  the  commencements  of  the  world's  trade  and 
commerce  are  carved  on  the  Phenician  and  Himyarite 
stones ;  or  leaving  the  dead  past  and  coming  to  move- 
ments within  our  own  era,  where  shall  we  look  but  to 
the  annals  of  the  Syriac  chroniclers  for  the  history  of 
the  last  great  incursion  of  the  barbarian  hordes  in 
which  the  curse  of  God,  Kenghiz  Khan,  ravaged  the 
fairest  portions  of  earth  and  swept  away  with  his 
besom  of  fire  and  blood  the  last  traces  of  antique  civ- 


STUDY  OF  THE  SHE 311  TIC  LANGUAGES.        3 1 

iUzation  ?  Where  shall  we  look,  one  might  almost 
say,  for  the  history  of  the  world  during  the  night  of 
mediaeval  superstition  and  barbarism,  when  Europe 
scarce  had  a  history,  but  to  the  scholars  of  Bagdad 
and  Cordova  ?  The  very  faults  of  Shemitic  style 
make  their  documents  of  the  greatest  historical  value 
— we  have  an  almost  painfully  detailed  rehearsal  of 
the  minutiae  of  the  facts  known  to  their  compiler — 
rarely  redeemed,  the  historian  might  say  marred,  by 
being  fused  through  his  conception  of  them  into  a 
synthetic  whole. 

The  history  of  civilization  is  also  largely  beholden 
to  the  student  of  Shemitic  manners  and  beliefs. 

Renan  in  his  history,  graceful  as  fiction  and  scarce 
more  trustworthy,  has  evolved  a  theory  of  the  She- 
mitic monotheistic  instinct  which  has  almost  become 
an  integral  part  of  every  history  of  culture.  But  later 
investigation  shows  that  hardly  any  people  are  of 
nature  and  intent  so  little  monotheistic  as  the  She- 
mites.  The  primitive  Bedouin  Shemite  is  a  fetich- 
worshipper — he  never  advances  into  civilization  in 
the  early  time  save  to  become  polytheistic.  What  is 
called  the  monotheistic  instinct  is  clearly  due  to  some 
impulse  from  without  on  a  single  branch  of  the  She- 
mitic stock.  It  is  no  less  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing than  one  of  the  most  important  tasks  of  the 
student  of  civilization  to  trace  this  back  to  its  foun- 


32        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

tain-head,  follow  it  through  the  history  of  that  mys- 
terious fragment  of  our  race  whom  it  raised  to  a 
position  of  permanent  influence  and  interest  such  as 
even  Greek  art  and  literature  has  failed  to  do  for  the 
Hellens,  until  it  blossoms  out  into  the  two  great 
religions  of  the  world,  Christianity  and  Islam,  The 
religion  of  the  western  world,  be  it  Judaism  or  Chris- 
tianity, is  stated  in  Shemitic  terms ;  was  first  taught 
by  a  Shemitic  tongue  to  a  Shemitic  people.  The 
origin  and  primitive  form  of  Christianity  is  inexplica- 
ble without  understanding  that  the  manners  and 
habits  of  thought  of  its  founders  were  Shemitic. 
The  Greek  element  which  later  came  into  it  and  is  so 
often  confounded  with  it  became  an  element  of  aliena- 
tion to  its  Shemitic  followers. 

Turn  in  another  direction  and  how  valuable  are  the 
inquiries  as  to  the  genesis  of  the  Assyrian  art  and 
letters,  by  contact  with  which  in  Asia  Minor  and 
the  islands  of  the  Egean  our  own  art  had  its  begin- 
nings. Looking  to  the  eastward,  what  is  the  relation 
between  the  early  culture  of  India  and  the  Euphrates 
valley,  so  like,  yet  so  unlike?  Looking  to  the 
westward,  what  precisely  is  the  Shemitic  element  in 
the  primitive  Greek  culture,  what  the  Shemitic  influ- 
ence which  has  left  traces  so  unmistakable  in  the 
rude  art  which  has  been  exhumed  in  our  day  from 
Mycenae  and  Hissarhk? 


STUDY  OF  THE  SHEMITIC  LANGUAGES.        33 

Only  time  fails  me  further  to  dwell  on  the  many- 
points  of  interest  and  importance  in  Shemitic  study. 
I  trust  that  this  University  which  already  in  its 
beginnings  has  done  so  much  for  the  elevation  of 
American  scholarship  may  be  permitted  to  solve 
some  of  these  problems.  I  trust  Shemitic  letters  may 
never  be  regarded  here  as  survivals  of  a  scholastic 
learning  whose  usefulness  has  long  since  volatilized, 
may  never  be  taught  here  to  prove  any  dogma  save 
truth.  I  trust  they  may  be  esteemed  as  of  equal 
value  with  their  sister  branches  of  philology  and 
literature  for  the  study  of  the  thought,  the  civilization 
and  the  history  of  the  world. 

I  shall  in  continuation  of  this  course  of  lectures 
take  up,  in  our  next  hour,  first  a  short  sketch  of  the 
rise  and  development  of  the  literature  of  the  Jewish 
people,  passing  then  to  speak,  more  specially  of  the 
book  of  Psalms  ;  the  collection,  arrangement  and  the 
present  form  of  the  entire  book,  together  with  the 
style,  authorship  and  age  of  the  several  poems.  This 
course  is  7iot  designed  for  Hebrew  scholars,  so  use 
will  be  made  of  the  version  of  King  James  now  in 
general  acceptance  in  most  English-speaking  com- 
munities. 

2* 


LECTURE   II. 


I  ENDEAVORED  in  a  prcvious  hour  to  make  clear  to 
you  the  origin  of  the  Shemitic  peoples,  and  traced, 
after  a  cursory  manner,  the  migrations  by  which  they 
became  masters  of  the  hither  Orient.  I  further  en- 
deavored to  show  the  importance  of  the  study  of 
Shemitic  letters  and  history  to  a  just  appreciation  of 
the  thought  and  civilization,  not  only  of  antiquity  but 
even  of  our  own  time.  Many  of  the  points  which  I 
then  merely  touched  might  be  further  dwelt  on  with 
both  interest  and  advantage.  We  must  however  turn 
now  to  the  consideration  of  the  language  and  litera- 
ture of  one  of  the  smallest  and  politically  least  impor- 
tant of  these  Shemitic  peoples — the  Israelites. 

The  Hebrew  literature  is  one  of  the  cultured  litera- 
tures of  the  world ;  as  literature  it  suffers  with  most 
of  us,  through  being  removed  by  certain  subjective 
standards  from  comparison  with  all  other  literatures. 
In  what  I  have  to  say  in  this  and  the  succeeding  lec- 
34 


THE  HEBREW  LANGUAGE. 


35 


tures,  I  shall  regard  it  alone  from  the  linguistic  and 
literary  side,  which  I  trust  will  not  be  without  in- 
terest in  opening  up  some  views  which  may  prove 
novel  to  you.  Believe  me  that  I  do  so  not  from  any 
unmindfulness  of  the  sacred  relations  other  than  lite- 
rary in  which  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  must  ever  stand 
to  us. 

Take  up  any  history  of  the  Orient  of  a  century  ago 
and  you  will  find  stated  as  an  axiom,  to  doubt  which 
was  well-nigh  doubting  an  essential  of  faith,  that  the 
Hebrew  was  the  mother-tongue  of  the  race  spoken  in 
Eden  by  our  first  parents ;  for,  naively  says  an  old 
chronicler,  "  the  divine  name  as  well  as  that  of  the 
first  human  pair  are  plainly  of  the  Hebrew  tongue," — 
the  only  fly  in  the  pot  of  ointment  being  that  the 
serpent  seemed  so  conversant  with  this  same  divine 
language. 

With  the  growing  knowledge  of  the  Orient  and  the 
renascence  of  philological  study  due  to  the  discovery 
of  the  Sanscrit,  it  became  apparent  that  any  such  ori- 
gin of  human  speech  was  impossible ;  the  miracles  in 
language  by  which  the  Greek  and  Latin  were  derived 
in  the  olden  time  from  the  Hebrew  are  now  for  scholars 
but  curiosities,  of  interest  alone  to  the  historian  of 
philology.  I  have  been  surprised  to  find  that  even  at 
the  present  day  this  view  of  the  priority  of  the  He- 
brew retains  such  hold  in  the  popular  beliefs ;  but 


2,6        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

even  going  no  further  than  the  Hebrew  Scripture,  on 
ground  of  which  the  view  is  still  held  by  some,  it  is 
capable  of  convincing  disproof;  for  (i)  the  proper 
names  which  came  down  in  the  Mosaic  writings  from 
the  antediluvian  period  are  not  Shemitic  nor  can  they 
be  explained  from  any  Shemitic  language,  least  of  all 
from  the  Hebrew.  The  people  to  whom  they  be- 
longed seem  to  have  been  members  of  an  older  non- 
Shemitic  civilization,  who  held  the  orient  before  the 
rise  of  the  Shemitic  peoples.  Scholars  are  in  doubt 
as  to  who  this  earlier  people  were,  though  it  seems 
the  growing  belief  that  they  were  akin  to  the  present 
Turanians.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  (2)  clearly  stated 
in  the  Genesis  that  the  Terahite  or  Hebrew  migration 
had  its  origin  in  the  district  of  Ur,  on  the  lower  Eu- 
phrates. Almost  contemporaneous  slabs  and  tablets, 
of  late  years  unearthed  at  Mugheir,  show  that  the 
language  spoken  in  Ur  at  the  time  of  the  Abrahamic 
migration  must  have  been  the  Babylonian,  thus 
strikingly  confirming  our  assumption  made  on  purely 
philological  grounds  in  the  last  hour,  that  the  He- 
brew was  developed  through  the  Babylonian  from 
some  earlier  Shemitic  mother-tongue  ;  and  we  find 
in  Genesis  xxxi.  47,  that  an  older  branch  of  the 
patriarchal  families  than  that  to  which  Abraham 
belonged  lived  in  Mesopotamia  and  spoke  not  the 
Hebrew  but  the  Aramaic. 


THE  HEBRE IV  LANG  UA  GE.  3  7 

Not  to  confuse  or  weary  you  with  technical  mi- 
nutiae, I  will  sum  up  the  judgment  of  modern  scholar- 
ship in  a  word  by  saying  that  what  is  known  to  us  as 
Hebrew  is  the  Shemitic  dialect  of  the  Palestinian  sea- 
board of  the  Mediterranean,  spoken  with  slight  shades 
of  variance,  chiefly  in  vocabulary,  by  all  the  Pales- 
tinian peoples.  Do  you  ask  for  proof  of  this,  you 
may  read  it  in  clearest  character  in  the  broken  frag- 
ments of  the  Mesha  Stone,  ^  oldest  monument  of  the 
Palestinian  people  ;  on  the  ruins  of  the  Phenician  col- 
onies, strewn  on  every  coast  of  the  Mediterranean, 
and  in  the  names  of  the  towns  and  peoples  of  the 
Canaanites,  preserved  to  us  in  the  writings  of  the 
nation  who  had  dispossessed  them. 

The  barriers  which  grew  up  in  a  later  time  were 
national  and  religious  ;  linguistically  there  were  none. 
Phenician,  Philistine,  Canaanite,  and  Israelite,  all 
spoke  patois  of  the  same  sea-coast  dialect,  probably  in 
no  case  with  such  variance  as  would  prevent  perfect 
mutual  understanding  of  one  another.  How  this  dia- 
lect,   with    its   peculiar   variations   from  the   mother 

1  The  Mesha  stone  or  Moabite  stone  is  a  heavy  basaltic  block  dis- 
covered in  the  year  1868  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Dead  Sea.  It  con- 
tains an  inscription  in  the  Moabitish  dialect  by  the  Moabite  king 
Mesha,  narrating  the  victories  that  his  god  Chemosh  had  given  him  over 
the  Israelites  ;  the  inscription,  belonging  to  the  ninth  century  B.  C,  is  a 
valuable  contribution  to  Shemitic  palaeography,  shows  the  close  simi- 
larity of  the  Moabite  and  Israelite  dialects,  and  throws  light  on  the 
history  of  the  Omri  dynasty.     (T.) 


38        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

tongue  and  the  sister  dialects,  grew  up,  we  can  not  as 
yet  clearly  see  ;  it  is,  however,  considered  proven  by 
the  best  Shemitic  scholars  that  it  grew  up  in  Palestine 
from  the  meeting  and  attrition  there  of  the  various 
Shemitic  invasions — Babylonian,  Aramaic,  and  Arabic 
— during  a  longer  or  shorter  period  subsequent  to  the 
year  3000  before  our  era. 

The  migration  who  enter  Palestine  under  Abraham, 
including  not  only  the  subsequent  Israel  but  as  well 
the  Moabites,  Edomites,  Ammonites,  and  even  the 
Ishmaelite  Bedouin,  who  later  held  the  northern  edge 
of  the  Arabic  desert,  have  the  generic  designation 
Hebrew  ('"^^-^  Ibri),  a  little  understood  name,  refer- 
ring, perhaps,  to  their  having  come  from  beyond 
p.^Ji'.)  the  Euphrates — it  is  a  name  precisely  of  a  sort 
with  Canaan,  (li?^?  Kcnami),  the  national  epithet  of  the 
previous  immigration. 

There  is  a  mooted  question  which  need  not  concern 
us  here,  as  to  whether  the  Abrahamic  immigrants 
came  in  among  the  previous  settlers  speaking  a  lan- 
guage precisely  similar  to  them,  or  whether  they  ac- 
quired their  later  dialect  from  the  Canaanites.  It  is 
at  all  events  clear  from  the  narrative  of  the  Genesis 
that  the  patriarchs  settled  on  friendly  terms  among  a 
people  with  whom  they  seem  to  have  readily  been 
able  to  communicate.  The  migration  of  a  portion  of 
the  Abrahamites  to  Egypt,  whither  they  had  been  at- 


THE  HEBREW  LANGUAGE. 


39 


tracted  by  the  fertile  lands  of  the  Goshen  delta  and 
the  largess  of  the  Arab  shepherd  (Hyksos)  dynasty, 
who  had  seized  the  reins  of  power,  probably  would  do 
little  to  change  their  dialect,  save  in  the  vocabulary 
for  things  specifically  Egyptian.  The  Egyptians  were 
the  most  exclusive  people  of  antiquity,  regarding  con- 
tact with  the  foreigner  as  pollution  ;  after  the  national 
movement  which  resulted  in  driving  out  the  hated 
rule  of  the  Hyksos,  their  Shemitic  subjects  were  in- 
terned in  slave  colonies  in  the  extreme  part  of  the 
eastern  boundaries.  Breaking  away  from  this  bond- 
age, it  was  the  majestic  revelation  received  through 
Moses  which  first  united  "  the  mixed  multitude  "  into 
the  people  Israel,  and  gave  to  it  that  peculiar  sense  of 
nationality — a  people  dwelling  alone — which  so  dis- 
tinguishes them  in  the  later  history  from  their  neigh- 
bor peoples,  kindred  in  language  and  descent.  Ibn 
Khaldun,  the  Hallam  of  Arab  historians,  in  his  "  His- 
tory of  the  Berbers,"  after  describing  in  an  eloquent 
passage  the  effect  of  the  desert  on  the  so-called  civil- 
ized man  of  the  town,  in  conclusion  wisely  and  pithily 
suggests  that  there  was  need,  throughout  a  generation, 
of  the  pure  air  and  simple  life  of  the  desert  to  fit  the 
vitiated  and  debased  fugitives  of  Egypt  to  become  a 
nation  and  the  bearers  of  a  revelation.^  But  however 
much  revelation  or  surrounding  may  have  shaped  the 

^  This  passage  occurs  in  the  Prolegomena  to  the  History,     (t.) 


40        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

character  of  the  people,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe 
their  language  underwent  any  change  ;  they  lived  and 
wandered  among  the  Ishmaelite  Arabs,  who  were  an 
offspring  of  the  same  stock  as  themselves.  There 
was  no  need  for  a  linguistic  conquest  of  Palestine. 
Though  they  came  back  a  nation  where  they  had 
gone  forth  a  fragment,  they  bring  back  with  them  a 
language  in  all  respects  similar  to  the  one  they  had 
taken  away  from  their  old  home.  With  all  the  stress 
laid  in  scripture  on  the  religious  and  national  diversi- 
ty between  Israel  and  the  Canaanites,  never  is  there 
an  allusion  to  so  telling  a  point  as  linguistic  difference 
might  have  made  had  it  been  present.  The  very 
name  Israel  gives  their  language,  "  the  tongue  of 
Canaan  "  (Isa.  xix.  i8,  U'i?  '"^?^),  seems  to  imply  what 
from  other  sources  we  know  positively,  that  it  was 
the  common  speech  of  all  the  dwellers  of  Canaan. 
The  whole  tone  of  the  narratives  in  the  Jewish  his- 
torical books  creates  the  impression  that  the  people 
of  Israel  had  easy  and  constant  communication, 
without  need  of  interpreter,  with  all  their  neighbors. 
But  while  in  the  slavery  of  Egypt  and  the  disci- 
pline of  the  desert,  the  Israelite  people  had  been 
growing  into  a  nation,  there  had  unnoticed  been 
encroaching  on  the  northern  frontier  of  Palestine  a 
language  which  was  destined  to  swallow  up  the  old 
speech  of  Canaan.     It  was  the  Aramaic  coming  from 


THE  HEBRE  W  LANG  UA  GE.  4 1 

Mesopotamia  and  the  upper  Euphrates,  to  whose 
later  growth  as  well  as  the  reason  of  it  I  alluded  in 
the  last  hour.  The  northern  tribes  of  Israel,  who 
barely  conquered  and  never  held  their  own,  were  at 
once  thrown  against  this  Aramaic  frontier  and  very- 
early  begin  to  show  signs  of  its  influence.  The  song 
of  Deborah,  a  war  ballad  composed  and  sung  in  the 
north,  has  forms  which  are  unmistakably  the  result 
of  this  Aramaizing.  Had  not  the  rise  of  the  Jewish 
kingdom  under  David  and  the  increase  of  its  wealth 
and  power  by  the  venturesome  but  successful  com- 
mercial policy  of  Solomon  furnished  a  centre  for 
the  national  life,  Israel  would,  long  ere  it  did,  have 
succumbed  to  the  pressure  from  the  north.  Moreover 
the  establishment  of  the  Temple  in  Jerusalem  rather 
than  at  Shiloh,  gave  to  the  Judean  patois  made  use 
of  in  the  service,  the  sanction  of  a  holy  language,  and 
it  became  forever  thereafter  the  standard  of  the  best 
literary  style,  thus  raising,  in  literature  at  least,  a 
break-water  against  the  rising  tide  of  Aramaism. 
After  the  upheaval  in  the  national  life  occasioned  by 
the  secession  of  the  ten  tribes,  the  result  of  dissatis- 
faction in  the  tribes  of  the  north  with  the  growing 
power  of  Judah  and  the  centralizing  policy  of  the 
court  faction  in  Jerusalem,  the  Israelite  kingdom  was 
by  the  necessities  of  its  situation,  drawn  into  close 
and  almost  constant  alliance  with  the  petty  Aramaic 


42        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

States  of  the  Anti-Lebanon.  The  effect  of  this  alh- 
ance  could  not  but  be  reflected  in  the  spoken  dialect 
of  the  northern  kingdom  which  had  ere  the  final  in- 
vasion and  conquest  by  Salmanu  asir  (^P^J.57^  Shal- 
maneser,  722  b.  c.)  been  lost  to  Hebrew  speech  and  at 
least  in  the  patois  of  the  common  people  become 
Aramaic,  The  question  which  has  so  vexed  many- 
good  people  as  to  the  whereabouts  of  the  lost  ten 
tribes,  recognized  within  a  decade  in  peoples  as  dis- 
similar as  the  American  Indians  and  the  Afghans, 
seems  to  me  capable  of  easy  solution  by  the  probable 
fact  that  the  great  mass  of  them  never  left  Palestine. 
The  peculiarly  Assyrian  policy  of  securing  them- 
selves from  revolt  and  internal  disorder  seems  not  to 
have  extended  to  the  deportation  of  entire  peoples, 
but  was  as  effectively  accomplished  by  the  removal 
of  the  upper  and  governing  classes;  in  some  few 
cases  it  extended  to  the  middle  classes,  probably 
never  to  the  peasantry.  How  far  this  deportation 
went  in  the  case  of  the  ten  tribes  we  have  no  sure  in- 
formation ;  but  probably  the  great  mass  of  the  people 
were  not  disturbed.  Those  who  were  taken  captive 
and  settled  in  Mesopotamia,  either  filtered  back 
amidst  the  Jewish  returns  in  the  age  of  Cyrus  and 
thereafter,  or  preferring  the  Euphrates  valley  became 
there,  with  their  Jewish  brethren  who  had  chosen  to 
remain  rather  than  to  undergo  the  peril  and  hardship 


THE  HEBRE  W  LANG  UA  GE.  43 

of  founding  a  new  State,  (became  there,  I  say),  the 
nucleus  of  those  Babylonian  communities  whose 
literary  and  commercial  activity  is  in  a  later  time  so 
celebrated.  Out  of  the  mixture  of  the  foreign  peo- 
ples brought  into  the  upland  of  Ephraim,  with  those 
who  had  remained  there  of  the  Israelites,  there  grew 
up  that  cultus,  so  distasteful  to  the  Jews,  whose  cen- 
tre was  Gerizim,  and  the  local  patois — in  all  its  main 
features  the  old  Ephraimite — which  developed  into 
what  is  known  to  us  as  the  Samaritan.  The  Galilean 
country  was  settled  by  a  more  mixed  population,  the 
outcome  of  which  was  an  Aramaic  dialect  with  such 
an  obscure  pronunciation  of  certain  characteristic 
Shemitic  sounds,  that  we  are  told  in  the  Talmud 
that  it  was  impossible  to  understand  a  certain  Galile- 
an who  came  to  the  Jerusalem  market  to  purchase 
something,  whether  he  desired  to  have  "'PQ  (hamar) 
an  ass,  "'^n  (hamar)  wine,  "^"^Z  (amar)  some  wool, 
or  '^?'^"  (immar)  a  lamb,  all  pronounced  precisely  the 
same  in  his  patois.  It  is  this  thick  pronunciation, 
almost  a  brogue,  which  is  the  point  in  the  betrayal  of 
Peter  by  his  speech.  I  fear  I  weary  you  by  philologi- 
cal detail,  and  can  plead  as  my  only  excuse  that  most 
of  the  misconception,  shall  I  add  preconception  of 
the  present  day,  as  to  the  Old  Testament  has  its 
origin  just  here.  Bear  in  mind  then  if  you  please 
that  by  the  end  of  the  seventh  century  before  our  era 


44 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


the  old  language  of  Canaan  had  probably  ceased  to  be 
a  spoken  tongue  north  of  Jerusalem ;  the  exact  lin- 
guistic line  being  of  course  a  changing  one  and  im- 
possible of  definition.  In  the  middle  belt  of  Ephraim 
was  spoken  a  patois  whose  historical  development  is 
the  Samaritan ;  in  the  further  north  there  was  gradu- 
ally crystallizing  out  of  many  elements  the  later  Gal- 
ilean. 

We  have  thus  traced  the  Hebrew  to  its  extinction 
as  a  spoken  dialect  amongst  the  great  majority  of 
those  to  whom  it  had  once  been  a  mother  tongue ; 
let  us  now  glance  at  its  fate  in  the  kingdom  of  Judah. 
The  little  kingdom  of  Judah,  notwithstanding  the 
foreign  policy  of  its  court,  (who,  forgetting  that  their 
very  strength  lay  in  their  weakness  and  isolation, 
constantly  sought  the  alliance  and  aped  the  luxuri- 
ous manners  of  the  great  powers),  despite  the  disso- 
luteness of  morals  among  the  people,  who  not  only 
accepted,  but  sought  after  the  cultus  of  the  Arame- 
ans,  had  in  the  Temple  and  learned  classes  of  Jerusa- 
lem a  principle  of  stability  for  its  literature,  and  so, 
to  a  great  extent,  for  its  language,  which  had  failed 
the  northern  kingdom.  At  the  time  of  the  attack  on 
Jerusalem  by  Sennacherib  (Sanherib  3''^riJD)  we  know 
that  the  courtiers  of  Hezekiah  understood  Ararnaic, 
which  at  that  time  was  the  cultured  and  diplomatic 
language  of  the  Orient — somewhat  as  the  French  in 


THE  HEBRE  W  LANG UA  GE.  45 

Europe  during  the  last  century.  We  also  know  that 
it  was  not  understood  by  the  common  people,  who 
still  retained  the  older  Canaanite  tongue,  which  had 
come  to  be  called,  as  the  dialect  of  the  other  tribes 
had  become  Aramaic,  specifically  the  "  dialect  of  Ju- 
dah,"  all  of  which  you  may  see  by  referring  to  Isaiah 
xxxvi.  II.  There  is  scarce  another  so  widely  ac- 
cepted belief  as  to  the  history  of  the  East,  founded 
on  so  radical  an  error,  as  that  of  the  loss  of  their  lan- 
guage by  the  Jews  during  the  captivity.  This  is 
convincingly  disproven  by  the  fact  that  the  dialect 
spoken  by  them  at  a  later  day  could  not  have  been 
acquired  in  Assyria,  but  being  precisely  of  a  kind 
with  that  spoken  by  their  neighbors  on  the  north, 
must  have  come  to  the  Jews  from  them.  The  Capti- 
vity, with  its  breaking  down  of  all  authority  and  re- 
ligion, left  the  peasantry  no  doubt  exposed  to  Arama- 
ic influences  from  the  people  who  surrounded  them, 
but  the  educated  and  governing  classes,  who  were  car- 
ried away  into  Mesopotamia,  lived  together  in  dense 
colonies,  and  would  have  little  occasion,  as  they 
doubtless  had  small  disposition,  to  acquire  the 
tongue  of  their  conquerors.  At  all  events,  they  did 
not  acquire  it  ^     Some  of  the   Psalms  written  during 

^  The  author  here  assumes,  and  probably  rightly,  that  there  is  no  good 
ground  for  the  assertion  made  by  some  writers  that  Aramaic  had  in  the 
days  of  the  Exile  ousted  the  vernacular,  and  come  to  be  the  spoken 


46        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

the  Exile  show  as  exquisitely  delicate  a  perception  of 
the  niceties  of  the  language  as  those  of  the  earlier 
time.  It  seems  impossible  they  should  have  been 
composed  among  a  people  who  were  rapidly  losing 
their  language.  The  Jews  did  not  lose  their  lan- 
guage until  several  centuries  later;  the  main,  in  fact 
almost  the  sole  effect  of  the  Exile  was  in  preparing 
the  way  for  the  subsequent  change  by  breaking  down 
their  nationality  and  bringing  them  as  subjects  under 
powers  whose  official  language  continued  to  be  Ara- 
maic until  almost  the  opening  of  our  era.  The  exu- 
lants,  who  return  to  Palestine,  bring  back  with  them 
their  old  speech ;  in  fact,  with  a  generation  present 
at  the  foundation  of  the  latter  Temple,  whose  memory 
extended  back  to  the  former,  it  seems  to  me  impossi- 
ble that  any  great  change  should  have  taken  place. 

The  writings  of  the  post-exilic  period  in  the  clear- 
ness and  ease  of  their  style,  attest  the  language  as  a 
living  and  spoken  one ;  further  and  immediately  to 
our  point,  the  writings  of  the  post-exilic  religious 
orators  or  prophets,  which  would  have  been  of  no 
value  unless  generally  understood  by  the  mass  of  the 
people,  are  written  in  the  purest  vernacular.  The 
linguistic  tenacity  of  the  Jewish  people  is  something 
which   interests    scholars    in   very  many  fields — the 

language  of  Babylon  and  Babylonia.     The  opinion  that  it  was  the  tongue 
of  the  Chaldeans  is  now  entirely  abandoned.     (T.) 


THE  HEBRE  W  LANG  UA  GE.  4  7 

Jewish  universities  on  the  Euphrates  preserve  to  us 
forms  which  the  contemporaneous  Arabic  had  long 
out-grown  ;  Spanish  scholars  tell  us  that  the  writings 
of  the  Spanish  Jews  (in  Spanish)  are  in  a  style  two 
centuries  older  than  their  time ;  and  there  may  be 
found  in  the  dialects  of  the  French  and  German  Jews 
many  forms,  preserved  almost  like  flies  in  amber, 
from  the  very  oldest  French  and  German,  It  was 
the  same  tenacity  which  helped  the  Jewish  people  to 
retain  their  old  language,  for  three  centuries  after 
their  return,  under  constant  Aramaizing  influence. 
It  is  not  to  our  purpose  to  follow  minutely  the  decay 
of  Jewish  speech,  beginning  wath  the  peasantry,  and 
last  of  all  reaching  the  religious  orders ;  it  extended 
through  the  Persian  dominion,  during  the  feuds  of 
the  Greek  dynasties,  when  Palestine  hung,  the  apple 
of  discord  between  the  warring  generals  of  Alexan- 
der, and  not  until  the  repressive  measures  of  the 
Seleucidae  to  "  damp  the  speech  of  sedition,"  does 
it  entirely  cease  to  be  a  spoken  language  in  the 
second  century  before  our  era — crushed  out  between 
the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of  Greek  and  Ara- 
maic, Its  history  henceforth,  is  that  of  a  learned 
language,  one  of  the  schools  and  not  of  common  life. 
The  Jews  of  the  Greek  dispersion  learned  Greek,  and 
so  completely  forgot  the  mother  tongue  that  a  Greek 
translation  of  their  sacred  books  had  to  be  made  for 


48        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

them.  Those  who  remained  in  Palestine,  together 
with  the  settlements  of  the  exiles  who  had  tarried  in 
Babylonia,  spoke  Aramaic,  until  this  was,  in  the  sixth 
century  after  our  era,  dispossessed  in  turn  by  the 
Arabic.  The  subsequent  history  of  the  dialects  of 
the  Jews  and  the  rise  of  the  Rabbinic  and  the  new 
Hebrew,  does  not,  interesting  though  it  be,  fall  within 
the  scope  of  these  lectures. 

I  trust  that  I  have  thus  far  made  clear  to  you  that 
the  so-called  Hebrew  is  the  tongue  of  Palestine 
where  we  can  trace  it  back  to  a  period  two  thousand 
years  before  our  era ;  that  it  was  displaced  among 
the  northern  ten  tribes  by  the  Aramaic  in  the  seventh 
century  before  our  era ;  among  the  Jews  it  was  re- 
tained until  the  second ;  that  since  this  time  it  has 
been  a  purely  learned  language,  spoken  indeed  after 
a  fashion,  but  without  growth,  or  hold  on  popular 
consciousness.  So  far  from  being  a  mysterious  lan- 
guage, it  is  one  of  the  easiest  for  the  scholar  to  grasp 
and  determine  the  position  of  You  will  notice  that 
what  I  have  said  of  the  "  tongue  of  Canaan  "  has 
been  confined  to  it  as  spoken  by  the  Israelites.  It  is 
with  intent  that  I  have  not  alluded  to  it  as  spoken  by 
the  Phenicians,  or  the  other  lowland  people ;  that 
would  lead  us  too  far  from  the  main  point  we  have  in 
view,  without  changing  in  any  essential  particular  the 
history  of  the  language  as  we  have  sketched  it.     Let 


HEBRE IV  LITERA  TURE. 


49 


us  turn  now  from  the  linguistic  to  the  hterary  side  on 
which,  hereafter,  in  these  lectures,  I  shall  chiefly  dwell. 

The  literature  of  the  Jewish  people  falls  naturally 
irtto  two  almost  equal  divisions,  the  literature  written 
in  their  own  native  dialect — the  Hebrew — and  the 
literature  written  by  them  in  foreign  languages.  The 
latter,  which  by  the  very  terms  of  these  lectures  is 
excluded  from  our  present  attention,  is  a  literature  of 
enormous  extent,  principally  preserved  in  the  Ara- 
maic and  Arabic,  but  found  beside  in  almost  all  the 
civilized  languages  of  the  ancient  and  modern  world. 
It  contains  many  of  the  writings  which  have  done 
most  to  give  renown  to  Jewish  literature ;  in  Greek, 
the  philosophy  of  Philo  and  the  Jewish  fore-runners 
of  the  new  Platonism  in  Alexandria  ;  in  the  Aramaic 
the  main  part  of  the  Talmud,  hugest  yet  crudest 
of  all  encyclopedias,  a  very  sea  of  learning  which 
swamps  most  of  the  craft  which  venture  upon  it; 
in  the  Arabic,  the  poetry  and  belles-lettres  of  the 
Spanish  Jews,  which  lent  grace  to  the  civilization  of 
the  Caliphate  of  Cordova,  while  Christian  Europe 
lay  in  barbarism. 

Leaving  this  and  taking  up  the  Jewish  literature 
written  in  Hebrew,  we  find  this  again  falling  naturally 
into  two  divisions — the  literature  written  during  the 
existence  of  the  Hebrew  as  a  spoken  language — the 
natural  outgrowth  and  expression  of  the  thought  and 
3 


50        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

life  of  the  people,  and  the  literature  written  after  the 
Hebrew  had  ceased  to  be  a  spoken  language — the 
artificial  product  of  reflection  and  scholastic  effort. 
This  latter  we  are  obliged  once  more  to  exclude  from 
our  field  of  view.  Suffice  it  to  say  in  passing,  it  is  an 
extensive  literature,  whose  chief  value  is  technical, 
for  grammatical  investigation  and  the  like.  The 
artificiality  and  conceits  of  style  with  which  it  endea- 
vors to  atone  for  lack  of  originality  renders  so  much 
of  it  as  lays  any  claim  to  be  pure  literature  cloying  to 
the  taste  and  almost  unreadable. 

It  is  the  native  literature  during  the  life  of  the 
spoken  language  with  which  alone  we  are  concerned 
at  this  time.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  Hebrew 
was  a  spoken  language  for  about  two  thousand  years, 
from  a  period  somewhat  prior  to  the  twentieth  cen- 
tuiy  before  our  era  until  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century.  The  limits  of  the  literary  period  agree  in 
the  main  with  this  ;  perhaps,  however,  it  were  better 
on  account  of  the  great  variance  of  opinion  as  to  the 
date  of  the  later  writings  of  the  Hebrew  Scripture,  to 
state  the  literary  period  more  in  gross — as  from  the 
beginning  of  the  Hebrew  language  until  the  opening 
of  our  era.  You  have  thus,  I  trust,  a  clear  idea  of 
what  the  first  period  of  Hebrew  literature — that  with 
which  these  lectures  are  occupied — is.  It  is  the 
period  of  the  literature  during  the  life  of  the  spoken 


HEBRE  W  L  ITER  A  TURE.  5 1 

language,  extending  over  two  thousand  years,  from 
the  twentieth  century  until  our  era. 

When  we  ask  what  are  the  written  remains  of  this 
period  we  find  them  of  three  kinds  :  (i)  certain  in- 
scriptions and  coins,  (2)  a  few  apocryphal  books,  and 
(3),  and  mainly,  the  collection  of  writings  known  to 
us  as  the  Hebrew  Scriptures. 

The  inscriptions  are  some  twenty  or  more  carved 
seals  and  gems,  some  of  which  belong  to  a  period  long 
prior  to  the  Exile,  and  of  which  Dr.  Levy  of  Breslau 
has  treated  at  length.  For  paleography  they  are  of 
immense  interest,  but  as  they  contain  nothing  but 
proper  names  can  scarcely  be  reckoned  as  literature. 

The  coins  are  those  of  the  Maccabean  dynasty,  and 
are  all  subsequent  to  the  year  135  before  our  era. 
Though  of  great  rarity  and  numismatic  value,  they  are 
too  late  to  throw  any  light  on  the  language  or  litera- 
ture. Their  Hebrew  legends  prove  no  more  than  the 
Latin  now  stamped  on  the  coinage  of  England. 

What  I  mean  by  Apocryphal  books  I  doubt  my 
being  able  to  make  clear  until  I  speak  of  the  collec- 
tion of  the  Hebrew  literature  and  the  reasons  which 
lead  to  its  division  into  so  called  canonical  and 
apocryphal  writings  :— for  the  moment  then  this  may 
remain  in  abeyance. 

We  have  remaining  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  now  in 
our  hands,  by  far  the  most  extensive,  practically  the 


52 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


only  remains,  we  have  of  Hebrew  literature  from  its 
first  period.  I  have  said  only  remains.  They  were 
far  from  being  the  only  literature  during  this  period, 
for  we  have  fragments  scattered  all  through  the  writ- 
ings which  have  come  to  us  of  a  popular  and  religious 
poetry  now  irrecoverably  lost;  while  the  compilers 
of  the  Hebrew  annals  with  most  painstaking  accuracy 
give  us  the  literary  sources  from  which  they  draw 
their  information,  and  refer  us  to  books  circulating  in 
their  day  for  a  fulness  of  detail  which  they  themselves 
have  not  space  to  give.  Look  in  any  introduction  to 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  and  you  will  find  full  citations 
of  this  literature.  "  The  Book  of  the  Wars  of  the 
Lord ;  "  "  The  Book  of  the  Just ;  "  "  Chronicles  of  the 
Prophet  Nathan  ; "  "  Prophecy  of  Ahia  the  Shilon- 
ite ; "  "  Chronicles  of  the  Reign  of  David."  The 
literature  which  has  survived  necessarily  presupposes 
a  flourishing  contemporaneous  literature  in  a  high 
degree  of  cultivation,  and  of  a  literary  reading  class  in 
the  Jewish  community. 

When  we  take  up  these  fragments  of  the  early 
literature  which  have  come  down  to  us  in  the  He- 
brew Scripture,  the  first  thing  staring  the  student  of 
the  original  in  the  face  is  the  precise  similarity  of 
grammatical  form  running  through  the  entirety  of  the 
writings.  I  presume  you  know  that  grammatical 
form  in  all  literary  investigation,  be  it  even  in  our 


HEBRE  W  LITER  A  TURE.  5  3 

own  English,  is  regarded  as  the  most  trustworthy- 
indication  of  the  age  of  any  piece  of  Hterature  at 
issue.  An  English  scholar  will  at  a  glance  distin- 
guish the  English  of  Chaucer  from  that  of  the  age  of 
Jonson  by  its  form.  When  we  take  up  the  Hebrew 
Scripture  purporting  to  be  a  collection  of  fragments 
from  a  period  of  over  two  thousand  years,  we  find 
from  the  oldest  to  the  youngest,  a  precise  similarity 
of  form ;  no  archaisms  from  an  older  time,  no  trace 
of  growth,  still  less  of  decay — a  phenomenon  unpar- 
alleled in  literary  history — a  language  apparently 
sprung  full  clothed  from  the  brain  of  a  people  who 
continued  to  speak  it  for  twenty  centuries  unchanged. 
This  has  been  made  the  basis  of  many  charges  of 
designed  manufacture  of  the  writings  to  serve  the 
purpose  of  a  priestly  caste  who  gained  control  of  the 
rehabilitated  Jewish  state  shortly  after  the  Exile. 
There  is  no  other  human  speech  or  literature  without 
a  history — were  the  form  in  which  we  have  the 
Jewish  literature  the  original  one,  there  would  be 
strong  reason  for  suspicion  that  it  was  the  product  of 
a  single  age  and  school.  We  know,  however,  that 
we  do  not  have  the  sacred  literature  of  the  Jews  in  its 
original  form,  but  in  the  liturgical  shape  into  which 
it  was  cast  for  purposes  of  worship  by  certain  profes- 
sors of  the  University  of  Tiberias  in  Galilee,  about  the 
sixth  century  of  our  era. 


54        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Perhaps  I  may  make  it  clear  to  you  by  an  example 
from  English  literature.  Imagine  that  the  entirety 
of  English  literature,  from  Caedmon  to  Spenser,  with 
all  the  variety  and  growth  of  form  which  enables  us  to 
distinguish  it  into  old,  middle,  and  iiezv  English,  had, 
in  the  age  of  Anne,  been  cast  by  the  Anglican  clergy 
into  a  form  suitable  to  the  intoned  reading  of  their 
service,  and  in  that  shape  alone  had  come  down  to  us. 
You  will  perceive  that  to  be  understood  by  the  peo- 
ple of  the  reign  of  Anne,  the  forms  which  had  be- 
come archaic  in  their  time  must  be  given  up ; — to 
suit  it  to  the  intoned  reading,  the  original  sounds 
must  receive  an  unnatural  and  artificial  pronuncia- 
tion. We  should  possess  the  early  literature  of  Eng- 
land, no  doubt,  with  unchanged  credibility  and  his- 
torical interest,  but  we  should  have  lost  all  the  land- 
marks for  determining  its  growth — it  would  be  early 
English  literature  in  the  language  of  the  time  of 
Anne.  We  should  have  lost  beside  the  only  sure 
clue  to  determining  the  age  of  the  writings,  whose 
authorship  was  for  any  reason  in  dispute.  The  his- 
tory of  English  literature  could  only  be  gathered 
from  allusions  in  the  writings  themselves  to  places, 
persons  or  events,  that  we  knew,  from  the  con- 
temporaneous literature  of  other  peoples '  which  were 
not  so  evilly  entreated,  had  lived  or  occurred  in  some 
one   period   or   another.      Probably,  however,  if  we 


HEBRE  W  L  ITER  A  TURE.  5  5 

wrote  English  literary  history  we  should  form  some 
subjective  and  dogmatic  standard  in  our  minds  as  to 
how  it  should  have  been  developed,  and  then  with 
as  much  literary  skill  as  we  were  capable  of,  fit  its 
remains  to  this  Procrustean  bed  of  our  ideal. 

Such  is  precisely  the  condition  in  which  the  He- 
brew writings  have  come  to  us.  The  liturgical  revi- 
sion of  the  Tiberian  theologians  has  obliterated  all 
the  distinctive  forms  of  the  earlier  time.  The  lan- 
guage of  Moses  is  similar  to  that  of  Isaiah,  and  that 
of  Isaiah  to  Malachi,  all  being  in  common  flattened 
out  into  the  low  (of  course  I  mean  in  the  sense  we 
say  low  Dutch)  pronunciation  in  vogue  in  Tiberias  in 
the  sixth  century  subsequent  to  our  era.  Bear  in 
mind  what  I  said  as  to  the  supposed  case  in  early 
English.  We  have  the  old  Hebrew  literature  with 
unchanged  credibility  and  historical  value ;  what  it 
has  lost  is  its  original  literary  form.  So  you  may 
understand  why  Hebrew  literature  has  furnished 
ground  for  opinions  as  to  its  origin  and  development, 
so  diametrically  opposed  to  one  another.  Approach- 
ing it  from  the  purely  literary  side,  scholars  whose 
learning  can  not  be  called  in  question,  have  referred 
its  beginning  to  periods  as  remote  from  one  another 
as  Moses  and  Ezra,  and  there  is  scarce  one  of  its  writ- 
ings the  opinions  as  to  whose  origin  does  not  range 
over   several    centuries.      Subjective    standards  have 


56        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

indeed  been  raised  and  vehemently  insisted  on  by  the 
varying  schools,  for  the  very  reason  that  there  is  not 
in  the  writings  themselves  that  sure  standard  of 
literary  form  which  alone  enables  scholars  to  trace 
the  development  of  any  literature  and  establish  be- 
yond controversy  the  age  of  its  several  writings.^ 

The  beginnings  of  the  literature  of  Israel  are  coin- 
cident with  the  beginnings  of  its  national  conscious- 
ness at  the  time  of  Moses.  Compared  with  other 
literatures  of  the  Orient,  it  is  of  comparatively  recent 
origin.  The  pyramids  which  to-day  look  down  on 
us  had,  when  Moses  was  born,  been  keeping  watch 
over  Egypt  for  five  ^  centuries,  and  the  heyday  of 
Egyptian  literature  and  culture  had  long  before  him 
begun  to  wane.  Even  in  the  Shemitic  people  there 
had  been  a  long  period  of  literary  development,  and 
to  the  eyes  of  the  western  nations  there  has  in  this 
century  been  unearthed  a  literature  written  by  the 
Chaldean  ancestors  of  Abraham. 

Drawing  the  line  again  more  closely  we  find  even 
in  the  "  language  of  Canaan,"  clear  traces  of  a  litera- 
ture prior  to  the  Mosaic  age,  for  when,  forty  years 

1  That  the  author  does  not  here  mean  to  exclude  wholly  other  notes  of 
age  than  the  phonetic-grammatical  of  which  he  speaks,  is  evident  from 
the  judgments  he  passes  pp.  62,  131,  on  the  dates  of  various  Old 
Testament  writers.  His  object  is  to  warn  against  arbitrary  subjective 
critical  conclusions,  and  to  insist  on  a  strict  scientific  critical  method,  (t.) 

3  Leading  Egyptologists  assign  to  the  oldest  of  the  pyramids  a  much 
greater  antiquity  even  than  this.     (T.) 


HEBRE IV  LITER  A  TURE.  ^  7 

later  Israel  enters  Canaan  there  is  mention  of  a  city 
so  celebrated  by  its  library  as  to  have  -been  named 
after  it/  Doubtless,  even  the  tribal  fragments  out  of 
which  Israel  was  welded  into  a  nation,  had  their  own 
traditions,  some  of  which  may  have  been  committed 
to  writing.  We  find  throughout  the  Genesis  constant 
evidence  of  the  use  of  older  material,  partially  ex- 
plainable as  transmitted  by  verbal  tradition,  as  the 
refrain  from  the  sword-song  of  Lamech;  but  in  a 
measure,  only  explainable,  as  the  old  chronicle  in 
chap.  xiv.  by  being  preserved  in  some  written  shape. 
In  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  however,  we  have  no 
trace  of  a  distinct  literary  activity,  in  any  of  the  peo- 
ples who  made  up  Israel  prior  to  the  beginning  of 
their  national  existence.  It  is  a  literary  problem  of 
the  greatest  moment,  just  how  much  of  the  literature 
which  the  pious  reflection  of  a  later  generation  refers 
to  its  eponymous  lawgiver,  can  justly  be  given  to 
him.  The  discussion  of  the  origin  of  the  Mosaic 
literature  would  in  itself  involve  many  lectures.  I 
am  fully  aware  with  what  force  and  learning  the  ob- 
jections to  the  Mosaic  origin  of  the  Hebrew  litera- 
ture both  have  been  and  are  being  urged.  Perhaps 
that  which  is  most  celebrated  and  widely  accepted 
among  scholars  at  'the  present  day,  is  the  one  pre- 
sented with  great  lucidity  by  Kuenen   in   his   "Re- 

^  Kirjath-sepher,  "  City  of  books."    Josh.  xv.  15.     (T.) 

3* 


58         ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

ligion  of  Israel,"  that  the  beginnings  of  Jewish 
literature  were  the  prophetic  writings  of  the  eighth 
century.  To  me  it  seems  impossible  that  the  litera- 
ture of  any  people  should  have  writings  like  those 
of  the  eighth  century  for  its  incunabula,^  If  the 
canons  gained  from  the  study  of  other  literatures  be 
of  any  value,  these  eighth  century  writings,  now  so 
much  discussed,  are  inexplicable  save  as  the  ripe 
fruitage  of  a  long  previous  literary  period.  It  is  im- 
possible, however,  for  even  the  most  conservative 
student  of  the  Mosaic  literature,  to  deny  that  in  its 
present  shape  it  shows  such  traces  of  editing  and  an- 
notation, as  to  render  it  inconceivable  that  it  should 
have  come  from  any  one  man  or  any  one  time.  Into 
the  so-called  theory  of  manuscripts,  with  whose  pain- 
ful minutiae  the  Hitzigian  school  first  confused  their 
readers,  and  then  befogged  themselves,  I  do  not  now 
propose  to  enter.  The  fairest  summing  up  of  the 
outcome  of  the  whole  discussion,  is  probably  this; 
that  the  Mosaic  literature  in  its  main  lines,  its  docu- 
ments, its  genealogies,  and  its  laws,  is  the  product  of 
the  great  mmd  who  laid  the  foundation  of  the  Jewish 
state ;  that  it  first  passed  from  documentary  to  liter- 

1  Kuenen  holds  that  none  of  the  present  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
were  committed  to  writing  before  the  eighth  century,  but  admits  a  pre- 
ceding unwritten  literature,  assigning  the  Song  of  Deborah,  for  example, 
to  the  period  of  the  judges.  (Religion  of  Israel,  English  Translation,  i. 
313,  314-)     (T.) 


HEBRE  W  LITER  A  TURE.  5  9 

ary  shape,  after  the  rise  of  the  Jewish  kingdom  had 
given  the  order  and  leisure  necessary  to  hterature, 
and  finally  was  edited  after  the  Exile  by  those  who 
collected  the  canon,  with  annotations  on  many  points 
of  interest  to  their  time,  which  in  the  original  were 
obscure.  This  to  me  adequately  explains  all  the 
phenomena  which  these  writings  offer,  and  I  am  una- 
ble to  perceive  either  on  scholarly  or  literary  grounds 
sufficient  warrant  for  the  more  radical  theories. 

The  period  of  the  entry  into  Canaan,  of  its  conquest 
and  gradual  occupation,  was  one  of  anarchy  and  un- 
rest, such  as  produces  among  most  peoples  myths 
and  ballads,  but  rarely  sustained  and  consecutive  lit- 
erature. Its  products  in  Israel  are  war  songs  like 
that  of  Deborah,  fables,  like  that  of  Jotham,  narra- 
tives, current  in  the  mouth  of  the  people,  of  their 
heroes  and  warriors,  like  Samson  and  Jephthah, 

First  after  the  establishment  of  internal  quiet 
through  the  Davidic  kingdom,  together  with  the  set- 
ting up  of  the  Temple  and  court  in  Jerusalem,  did 
there  grow  up  any  literary  class,  or  a  literature  in  our 
sense  of  the  word.  There  seems  early  to  have  been 
attached  to  the  court  stated  officials,  called  chron- 
iclers, who  were  doubtless  the  compilers  of  many  of 
the  books — such  as  "  Chronicles  of  the  Reign  of 
David,"  which  are  quoted  from  or  referred  to  in  the 
works  which  remain  to  us.     There  was  another  class 


6o        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

called  "  keepers  of  the  archives,"  whose  duty,  no 
doubt,  was  the  collection  and  preservation  not  only  of 
the  earlier  written  laws  and  documents,  but  also  the 
traditions  of  the  wilderness  and  those  disordered  years 
of  the  conquest  which  were  fast  fading  from  men's 
minds.  It  was  from  these  collections  that  the  books 
of  Joshua  and  Judges  were  edited,  by  whom  we  know 
not,  in  the  times  of  the  early  kings. 

With  the  luxury  and  culture  of  the  reign  of  Solo- 
mon came  a  contact  with  and  knowledge  of  foreign 
literatures,  from  which  arose  a  branch  of  literature  in 
the  Hebrew  which  seems  almost  exclusively  confined 
to  the  Solomonic  times,  that  of  translations.  ■  The 
book  of  Job,  which  I  shall  speak  of  at  a  later  time, 
and  many  chapters  of  the  Proverbs  come  under  this 
head. 

Poetry  was  the  earliest,  and  it  continued  until  the 
extinction  of  the  language  to  be  the  most  exquisite 
flowering  of  its  literature.  Much  of  the  poetry  which 
comes  from  pre-Davidic  times — the  Blessing  of  Jacob 
— the  Song  by  the  Sea — the  Song  of  Deborah — is  as 
perfect  in  form  as,  and  perhaps  even  more  forcible  in 
language  than  any  of  the  later  poetry.  But  it  was  first 
with  the  establishment  of  the  liturgical  worship  and 
orders  of  singers  in  the  temple  that  Hebrew  poetry 
assumed  its  most  characteristic  form  in  the  religious 
sonef.     We  shall  hereafter  see  that  somewhat  more 


HEBRE  W  LITER  A  TURE.  6 1 

than  half  of  the  poems  remaining  to  us  in  the  Book  of 
Psalms  were  written  during  the  duration  of  the  Judean 
kingdom. 

Prophetic  literature  had  its  origin  in  the  schools  of 
the  Prophets — communities  half  ascetic,  half  religious, 
which  have  existed  in  the  orient  with  different  names, 
under  every  form  of  religion,  from  the  earliest  times 
until  the  present.  It  is  the  characteristic  literature  of 
the  period  of  the  Kings,  but  I  must  defer  its  more 
general  consideration  until  I  come  to  speak  of  Isaiah. 
Its  representatives  in  this  period  are  Joel  (870), 
Jonah  (800),  Amos  (790),  Hosea  (785),  Micah  (725), 
Isaiah  (717),  Nahum  (700),  Zephaniah  (640),  Ha- 
bakkuk  (604),  Obadiah  (?),  Jeremiah  running  into 
the  Exile. 

Of  the  profane  literature  of  this  period,  which  we 
have  evidence  was  an  extensive  one,  there  is  naught 
preserved  to  us  save  perhaps  it  be  the  Song  of  Songs, 
or  Song  of  Solomon,  in  regard  to  which  many  of  the 
Church  Fathers  held  the  view  now  far  from  uncom- 
mon among  scholars,  that  it  is  a  popular  drama  which 
some  strange  chance  of  tradition  or  editing  had 
brought  into  its  present  place. 

The  golden  period  of  Jewish  letters  ends  with  the 
Exile.  From  the  post-exilic  times  we  have  literature 
perfect  in  form,  and  classical  in  language;  but  the 
evident  imitation  of  antique  models,  and  the  constant 


62        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

striving  to  conceal,  through  finished  shape,  the  dearth 
of  originahty,  betray  it  to  us  as  a  hterary  aftermath. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  upper,  the  writing 
and  reading  class,  were  those  who  most  suffered  from 
the  Exile.  On  their  return  to  their  old  home,  imme- 
diately after  ensuring  their  own  safety,  there  naturally 
came  the  desire  to  secure  what  was  most  sacred  to 
them  from  their  early  literature,  in  some  permanent 
form,  lest  a  new  catastrophe  might  utterly  obliterate 
it.  Whether  it  were  Ezra,  to  whom  the  unanimity 
of  tradition  points,  or  his  contemporaries  in  the  so- 
called  great  Synagogue  who  inaugurated  this  move- 
ment, we  do  not  know.  All  the  writings  were  not 
collected  at  once,  but  gradually  through  several  cen- 
turies and  in  three  separate  collections,  in  which  they 
still  remain  in  the  original. 

The  first  endeavor  seems  to  have  been  to  secure 
the  remains  of  the  Mosaic  writings,  the  most  venerable 
and  sacred  literary  heritage  of  the  nation.  These 
were  collected  almost  immediately  upon  the  return, 
and  becoming  the  religious  and  political  constitution 
of  the  new  State,  have  retained  for  Israel  ever  since 
an  importance  so  much  greater  than  that  of  the  rest 
of  its  literature,  as  almost  to  place  them  in  a  category 
of  their  own.  The  remnant  of  Ephraim,  who  some- 
what later,  with  motives  not  unmixed,  offered  aid  to 
the  returned  colony,  and  were  alienated  for  all  time 


COLLECTION  OF  THE  HEBREW  WRITINGS.      63 

by  the  refusal,  accept  alone  as  sacred  the  Mosaic 
writings  in  the  form  in  which  they  were  collected  at 
this  time. 

The  Mosaic  writings,  as  those  first  collected,  stand 
at  the  beginning  of  all  our  Bibles  as  they  do  in  the 
original.  Their  final  editing  and  arrangement  in  five 
books — in  fact  the  whole,  literary  shape  in  which  we 
now  have  them  is  the  work  of  this  period.  Only  the 
chapters  and  verses  in  our  English  Bibles  are  of  late 
origin,  and  these,  in  some  cases,  are  subsequent  to 
the  Protestant  Reformation.  The  name  we  give  these 
writings — Pentateuch — and  that  of  their  divisions — 
Genesis,  Exodus,  etc.,  either  come  directly  or  are 
translations  from  the  Septuagint,  a  Greek  transla- 
tion made  in  the  second  century  before  our  era,  as 
tradition  informs  us,  for  one  of  the  Ptolemies,  who 
secured  for  the  Alexandrian  library,  somewhat  as 
Professor  Miiller  is  now  striving  to  do  for  Oxford,  a 
collection  of  translations  from  the  chief  religious 
books  of  the  world.  The  name  in  the  original  Mosaic 
literature  is  '^^''^"^  Tora^  one  of  the  many  Bedouin 
words  preserved  by  the  Israelites  from  their  nomadic 
days.  It  means  some  landmark,  be  it  a  tree,  a  rock, 
a  ruin,  by  which  the  traveller  traces  his  way  through 
a  trackless  wild;  hence  in  the  ethical  sense  the 
land-mark  set  to  guide  men  on  the  way  of  life — 
unfortunately    translated    b  vbfioz   in   the    Greek    of 


64        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

the  New  Testament — whence  we  have  our  name, 
"  The  Law." 

No  sooner  was  this  collection  completed  than  there 
seems  to  have  come  the  popular  impulse  to  gather 
and  preserve  the  writings  of  the  men  whose  memories 
were  held  sacred  by  them  from  the  former  time,  and 
to  put  in  some  permanent  and  compendious  form  the 
history  of  the  Davidic  kingdom  with  its  departed 
glories.  The  result  of  this  was  a  second  collection 
called  °'^'^J  Ncbiim,  a  name  whose  force  is  obscured 
to  us  through  the  unfortunate  translation  of  the  Greek 
oi  7zpo<prjTac — The  Prophets. 

A  prophet,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  was,  and  still 
is  in  Shemitic  conception,  any  holy  man  who  comes 
with  a  divine  message — we  should  not  be  far  from 
right  were  we  to  paraphrase  the  original  as,  "  Writ- 
ings of  the  Saints." 

From  the  pre-exilic  time,  they  received  into  this 
collection,  the  writings  of  Joel,  Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah, 
Micah,  Zephaniah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Obadiah,  also 
Jeremiah,  whose  activities  as  writer  and  orator  extend 
into  exilic  times.  We  can  also  readily  understand 
the  reason  for  the  acceptance  of  Ezekiel  who  belongs 
wholly  to  the  Exile,  and  whose  rhetoric  clearly  be- 
trays his  Babylonian  surrounding ;  the  reason  of  the 
acceptance  of  Haggai  and  Zechariah,  one  an  old  man 
through  whom  the  prophetic  spirit  had  come  down 


COLLECTION  OF  THE  HEBREW  WRITINGS.      65 

from  the  former  time,  the  other  the  messenger  to  the 
new  state,  is  none  the  less  plain.  It  is  not  clear  why- 
Jonah  should  have  been  included. 

This  collection  was  probably  not  completed  until  a 
number  of  years  after  the  Exile,  as  it  includes  an 
anonymous  prophecy,  made  by  one  who  calls  himself 
the  messenger  of  Jehovah  —  Malachi  —  a  designa- 
tion and  not  a  proper  name,  and  which  is  usually 
referred  to  a  period  somewhat  subsequent  to  Nehe- 
miah.  Observe  that  the  book  of  Daniel  is  not  found 
in  this  original  prophetic  collection.  According  to 
all  Jewish  canonical  tradition,  it  is  a  much  later  book, 
and  in  the  Hebrew  text  is  found  in  a  collection  of 
writings  which  was  not  inaugurated  until  after  the 
prophetic  collection  had  been  closed.  Daniel  has 
come  into  its  position  among  the  Prophets,  in  our 
English  Scripture,  from  the  Greek  translation,  which, 
I  fear,  the  scholars  of  King  James'  time  were  some- 
what more  conversant  with  than  with  the  Hebrew 
original.  The  arrangement  of  books  in  this  collec- 
tion (at  least  in  the  form  we  have  it  preserved  to  us) 
is  partly  chronological,  but  in  the  main  regulated  by 
size; — thus  there  come  first  Isaiah,  Jeremiah  and 
Ezekiel,  though  none  of  them  are  as  early  as  some  of 
the  so  called  minor  prophets.  When  we  follow  further 
the  same  collection  and  inquire  into  the  arrangement  of 
the  twelve  minor  writings,  we  find  Hosea  immediately 


66        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

following  Ezekiel,  and  in  turn  followed  by  Joel  and 
Amos,  merely  on  the  principle  of  comparative  bulk. 
Hag-gai,  Zechariah  and  Malachi  were  placed  at  the 
end,  for  reasons  purely  chronological,  after  the  rest 
of  the  collection  had  been  made  up.  We  can  not 
now  see  any  clear  or  consistent  reason  for  the  posi- 
tion of  Obadiah,  Jonah,  Micah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk, 
and  Zephaniah,  which  stand  together  in  the  middle  of 
the  collection.  Probably  for  the  most  part  synchro- 
nous with  the  making  up  of  this  collection  there  was 
being  gathered  the  material  for  the  ancestral  history 
from  the  close  of  the  Mosaic  literature  until  the 
breaking  up  of  the  Exile.  The  collectors,  whoever 
they  may  be,  possessed  ready  to  their  hand  the  writ- 
ings, named  from  the  period  they  cover,  Joshua  and 
Judges,  which  we  have  already  seen  were  compiled 
in  the  preceding  age  from  the  royal  archives.  These 
they  made  use  of  in  their  existing  form.  They  seem 
then  to  have  addressed  themselves  to  preparing  a 
history  of  the  people  to  cover  the  gap  which 
remained,  from  the  last  of  Judges  until  the  Exile.  In 
doing  this  they  evidently  make  use  of  all  the  mate- 
rial available  to  them,  not  only  the  archives  and 
chronicles  which  had  been  saved  from  the  Assyrian 
invasions,  but  even  the  very  traditions  and  songs 
which  lingered  in  the  mouths  of  the  people.  The 
result  is  a  work  whose  style  and  consecution  betray 


COLLECTION  OF  THE  HEBREW  WRITINGS.      6/ 

the  offspring  of  single  effort,  but  which  for  later 
reasons  of  convenience  has  been  separated  into  four 
parts,  1st  and  2nd  Samuel  and  ist  and  2nd  Kings — 
these  names,  which  often,  by  the  way,  vary,  being 
meant  as  in  the  case  of  Joshua  and  Judges,  to  indi- 
cate the  subject  and  not  the  author  of  the  book. 
Chronicles,  which  is  adjacent  in  our  English  Bibles, 
is  a  much  later  book.  It  is  the  product  of  a  school 
of  thought  and  an  historical  method  almost  diamet- 
rically opposed  to  the  one  which  has  given  us  this 
earlier  history.  In  the  original  Hebrew,  Chronicles 
stands  at  the  very  end  of  the  last  collection  of  writ- 
ings, which  could  hardly  have  been  made  until  some 
centuries  later.  The  annals  thus  completed  from  the 
older  writings  Joshua  and  Judges,  and  the  new  com- 
pend  of  the  subsequent  history,  were  not  set  in  a 
separate  collection,  but  placed  one  might  almost  say 
as  an  introductory  historical  preface,  to  the  writings 
of  the  worthies  of  this  same  period  which  had 
already  been  collected.  To  the  whole  collection  was 
given  the  name  of  its  chief  part — "  The  Writings  of 
the  Saints  " — seemingly  confirming  what  I  have  just 
remarked,  that  the  historical  part  was  regarded  as 
secondary  ;  perhaps  no  more  than  an  historical  sketch 
of  the  time  in  which  lived  and  acted  those  whose 
writings  it  was  the  main  end  of  the  collection  to  pre- 
serve and  hand  down  to  the  after  time.     In  the  orig-- 


68        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

inal  this  second  collection  is  placed  with  correctness 
immediately  after  the  Mosaic  literature.  The  arrange- 
ment in  our  English  Bibles  represents  an  endeavor 
borrowed  from  some  of  the  old  versions  to  group  the 
writings  topically  rather  than  historically. 

After  the  collection,  both  of  the  Mosaic  literature 
and  of  the  prophetic  writings  had  been  completed, 
there  was  still  a  remainder  of  writings,  hallowed  in  the 
affections  of  the  people,  which  did  not  come  from  the 
Mosaic  time,  neither  were  they  by  prophetic  authors. 
So  by  the  canon  which  had  been  set  up  in  the  two 
former  collections  they  were  of  necessity  excluded 
from  them.  These  were  gathered  in  the  third  and 
last  collection,  which  received  the  name  D'^'^iS  _. 
Ketlmbini,  writings — or,  as  the  Greek  aptly  para- 
phrases it,  cLt  cLjiac  Ypafal — "  The  Hagiographa  " — 
"  Holy  Writings."  From  the  pre-exilic  times  there 
was  received  into  it,  first  of  all,  such  portions  of  the 
Psalms  as  were  then  existing,  which  were  from  a  great 
variety  of  authors ;  the  Book  of  Job,  whose  author 
was  unknown,  and  which  was  probably  an  adaptation 
from  some  foreign  literature ;  the  collection  of  Pro- 
verbs, including  not  only  Jewish,  but  also  Edomite  and 
Arabic  proverbial  sayings — (as  you  may  assure  your- 
self by  looking  at  the  later  chapters) — and  the 
Lamentations,  wrung  from  some  pious  heart  by  the 
desolations  of  the  city  of  his  worship.     A  slight  gap 


COLLECTION  OF  THE  HEBREW  WRITINGS.      69 

in  the  previous  history  between  Judges  and  Samuel  is 
supphed  by  the  httle  book  of  Ruth,  scarcely  as  much 
history,  as  it  is  the  most  exquisite  of  pastoral  idyls. 
A  new  historical  book,  unfortunately  severed  in  twain 
in  a  later  day,  and  known  to  us  as  Ezra  and  Nehe- 
miah,  was  written  to  preserve  the  story  of  the  later 
uprising  of  the  Jewish  State,  and  to  complete  the 
historical  narrative  of  the  earlier  books.  Thus  the 
collection  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century 
probably  included  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Job,  Lamenta- 
tions, Ruth,  and  the  Ezra  books.  Unlike  the  other 
collections,  this  was  not  then  closed,  but  remained 
open  to  receive  both  the  writings  of  a  later  time  and 
some  earlier  ones,  whose  sanctity  and  value  first  be- 
came established  during  the  succeeding  two  centuries. 
Among  the  later  writings  are  clearly  to  be  placed 
Esther,  the  reason  of  whose  right  in  the  collection  is 
still  in  dispute  among  scholars,  and  the  Chronicles, 
founded  on  the  Temple  records  and  a  mass  of  docu- 
ments, unused  or  inaccessible  to  the  compilers  of  the 
previous  history  of  the  same  period.  I  have  said 
already  that  Chronicles  stands  the  last  book  of  the 
Hebrew  original — who  the  author  was  we  do  not 
know — he  seems  often  overmastered  by  his  matter, 
and  some  have  gained  the  impression  in  reading  him 
that  he  is  writing  in  an  imperfectly  acquired  lan- 
guage'. 


70        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Of  early  literature  which  was  not  till  late  received 
in  the  collection  is  the  Song  of  Songs — a  book 
whose  sacred  character  remains  until  this  day  an 
undecided  subject  of  inquiry.  It  was  one  of  the 
burning  questions  of  Jewish  theology  in  the  first 
century  of  our  era,  whether  it  might  be  read  with 
washen  or  unwashen  hands ;  i.  e.,  whether  it  -was 
sacred  or  profane. 

There  remain  but  two  books  more,  Daniel  and 
Ecclesiastes.  The  opinions  as  to  the  age  of  these 
books  are  now  very  widely  variant ;  for  Daniel,  from 
the  Exile  to  the  persecution  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  ; 
for  Ecclesiastes,  that  it  is  a  reflection  of  the  aged 
Solomon,  or  a  Stoic  pamphlet  of  the  year  50.  The 
views  of  both  positive  and  negative  critics  are  held 
on  grounds  of  dogmatic  prepossession  which  will  not 
bear  literary  criticism.  It  is  impossible,  I  imagine, 
while  men's  minds  are  unable  to  investigate  these 
books  without  the  present  prejudice,  to  determine 
with  accuracy  either  their  age  or  their  authorship. 

When  this  collection  of  "  Holy  Writings "  was 
closed  is  not  known,  and  must  be  largely  determined 
by  the  dates  we  assign  to  its  later  books.  We  know 
with  reasonable  surety  that  it  existed, in  its  present 
shape  at  the  beginning  of  our  era.  In  the  New  Tes- 
ment  the  collection  is  called  the  Psalms,  a  name 
taken  from  its  principal  book ; — the  reference  to  the 


COLLECTION  OF  THE  HEBREW  WRITINGS.      71 

Law,  the  Prophets  and  the  Psalms  being  an  allusion 
to  the  three-fold  collection  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures, 
which  was  then  as  it  is  now  in  existence.  In  the 
arrangement  of  the  several  writings  in  this  collection, 
there  is  a  great  divergence  even  between  the  manu- 
scripts of  the  original — a  reflection  of  the  uncertainty- 
prevailing  until  a  time  subsequent  to  our  era  as  to 
the  age  and  authority  of  one  or  more  of  the  books. 
The  more  common  arrangement  in  our  best  printed 
editions  of  the  original  is :  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Job, 
Song  of  Songs,  Ruth,  Lamentations,  Ecclesiastes, 
Esther,  Daniel,  Ezra,  Nehemiah,  Chronicles. 

This  arrangement  is  topical — First,  three  poetical 
books,  then  five  so  called  ^'^^!^  Mcgilloth,  or  Rolls — 
read  by  the  later  Synagogue  on  certain  feast-days :  the 
Song  of  Songs  at  the  Passover;  Ruth  at  Pentecost 
(Whitsuntide) ;  Lamentations  on  the  anniversary  of 
the  Temple  Burning ;  Ecclesiastes  at  Tabernacles, 
and  the  most  prized  of  all,  Esther  on  Purim,  often  no 
more  than  a  Saturnalia,  and  lastly,  the  four  historical 
books. 

As  to  Ruth  and  Lamentations  there  is  some  reason 
for  supposing  that  at  one  time  they  may  have  be- 
longed to  the  older  collection  of  prophets  ;  at  a  later 
period,  for  a  certain  convenience  in  the  arrangement 
of  the  synagogue  reading  lessons,  which  I  cannot 
pause  to  explain,  they  were  transferred  hither  from 


72        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

their  original  position.  All  the  other  writings  just 
named  clearly  belong  in  this  last  collection.  Their 
position  in  our  version  is  borrowed  from  the  some- 
what eclectic  arrangement  of  Ptolemy's  translators. 

Thus  we  have  finished  our  brief  sketch  of  the 
Hebrew  language,  of  its  early  literature,  and  of  its 
collection.  The  name  this  literature  is  wont  to  receive 
is  "canonical,"  i.  e.^  in  conformity  to  some  standard 
which  is  set  up.  I  had  desired  to  explain  what  this 
standard  was  and  how  it  led  to  the  rejection  as 
apocryphal,  viz. :  for  private  and  not  public  reading — 
of  a  number  of  valuable  and  instructive  writings 
disapproved  of,  mayhap,  because  unread,  by  many 
who  were  contemporaneous  with  the  later  books  of 
the  canonical  collection.  I  will  not  broach  the 
question  now,  for  the  closing  hour  leaves  me  insuffi- 
cient space  to  satisfactorily  discuss  it.  At  some  time 
ere  I  conclude  these  lectures  I  will  take  an  opportu- 
nity to  further  speak  of  it  to  you. 


LECTURE  III. 


After  considering  in  my  first  lecture  the  position 
of  the  Shemitic  peoples  and  languages,  I  endeavored 
in  my  second  hour  to  sketch  for  you  in  most  hasty 
outline  the  history  of  the  Hebrew  people  and  their 
language,  of  their  literature  and  its  collection.  I 
have  been  asked  to  make  more  clear  to  some  of  you 
our  sources  of  information  as  to  the  three  collections 
of  which  I  then  spoke — The  Mosaic  writings,  or 
Pentateuch  — "The  Writings  of  the  Saints,"  known  to 
us  as  "  Prophets  " — and  the  KetJmbim  (Hagiographa) 
or  miscellaneous  writings.  None  of  you  need  be 
appalled  at  my  suggesting  your  confirming  what  I 
then  said  by  looking  in  any  printed  Hebrew  Bible, 
for,  in  the  better  editions,  the  indexes  and  rubrics  are 
all  printed  in  Latin.  You  will  find  the  arrangement 
to  be  precisely  as  I  stated. 

You  will  also  trust  me  when  I  say  to  you  that  the 
manuscripts  contain  in  all  respects  a  similar  arrange- 
ment.    But  some  one  may  say,  may  it  not  be  an  ar- 
4  73 


74 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


rangement  peculiar  to  the  occidental  manuscripts  on 
which  our  printed  versions  of  the  Hebrew  are  based, 
none  of  which  as  we  well  know  are  older  than  the 
twelfth  century  ?  This  is  possible,  as  the  western 
manuscripts  have  many  arrangements  both  of  books 
and  text  peculiar  to  themselves,  but  if  you  will 
come  with  me  to  St.  Petersburg,  I  will  show  you 
Hebrew  manuscripts  of  a  school  whose  principles  of 
text  and  arrangement  are  radically  diverse  from  those 
of  the  Tiberian  school  from  whom  our  western  manu- 
scripts have  come.  Rescued  within  a  decade  from 
the  cellars  of  a  certain  Firkowitzsh  of  Kschefet  Kali 
in  the  Crimea,  (whose  being  a  rabbi  did  not  prevent 
his  turning  an  honest  penny  at  forging,)  these  so- 
called  Babylonian  codices,  reaching  back  to  the  first 
century,  are  a  treasure  to  the  Russian  Imperial 
Museum,  even  more  unique  and  valuable  than  the 
famous  Sinaitic  manuscript  of  the  New  Testament. 
In  these  again  we  find  the  three  collections  in  an 
order  exactly  parallel  to  that  in  our  western  manu- 
scripts. Now  an  arrangement  common  to  the  manu- 
scripts of  both  these  schools  cannot  well  be  younger 
than  the  dispersion  of  the  Jewish  scholars  consequent 
on  the  Roman  invasions  at  the  taking  of  Jerusalem 
by  Titus;  or  the  greater  dispersion  of  fifty  years  later 
when  Hadrian  crushed  out  in  a  bloody  massacre  the 
last  hope  of  national  independence  which  had  shown 


COLLECTION  OF  THE  HEBREW  WRITINGS.      75 

itself  in  the  foolhardy  sedition  of  the  fanatic  Simeon 
bar-Kokhba. 

Thus  we  have  manuscript  evidence  for  saying  that 
these  three  collections  existed  in  the  original  as  early 
as  our  era.  In  the  time  of  Christ  we  know  they  ex- 
isted, for  He  speaks  of  the  Old  Testament,  not  as  a 
whole,  but  as  existing  in  three  separate  collections. 
The  Greek,  through  which  we  have  His  words,  but 
in  a  mirror  from  the  original,  makes  Him  say  the 
Law,  the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms  ;  there  can  be  no 
doubt,  however,  that  He  Himself  as  a  Jew,  speaking 
to  Jews,  would  use  the  very  designations  I  mentioned 
in  the  last  hour. 

But  one  more  supposition  can  be  left  to  the  objec- 
tor, and  that  is  that  the  arrangement  in  use  by  the 
Jews  at  the  opening  of  our  era  was  one  made  for  con- 
venience in  the  Synagogue  worship — a  sort  of  lesson 
book,  as  it  were,  while  the  Greek  Septuagint  transla- 
tion, almost  two  centuries  older,  has  really  an  earlier 
arrangement  of  the  books  which  has,  with  wisdom, 
been  borrowed  by  the  Vulgate  and  by  our  English 
version.  Fortunately  we  have  evidence  of  these  three 
collections  being  in  existence,  which  is  contempora- 
neous with,  if  not  earlier  than  the  translation  of  the 
Septuagint. 

The  Wisdom  of  Jesus  Sirach  is  the  most  important 
of  the   so-called  Apocryphal  writings,  and    one,  the 


76        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

reason  of  whose  exclusion  from  the  canon,  while  a 
book  like  Esther  is  admitted,  is  hard  to  see  even  on 
religious  grounds.  Its  author  lived  in  the  third  cen- 
tury. We  have  it  preserved  in  the  Greek  transla- 
tion alone,  prepared  by  the  piety  of  his  grandson, 
about  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  and  in  Egypt, 
the  very  home  of  the  Septuagint.  In  the  preface  to 
this  Greek  translation  his  grandson  speaks  constantly 
of,  and  refers  to,  as  well  known,  the  three  collections 
of  the  national  literature  under  precisely  the  same 
names  by  which  we  know  them  now.  The  evidence, 
therefore,  is  conclusive,  and  I  have  endeavored  to 
clinch  it  on  purely  objective  grounds,  without  refer- 
ring either  to  the  Talmud  in  which  it  is  recognized  as 
of  long  standing  in  its  time,  the  fifth  century,  a.d.,  or 
to  the  unanimous  consensus  among  Shemitic  scholars, 
whose  opinion  is  worth  the  quoting,  to  its  undoubted 
originality  and  to  the  eclecticism  of  arrangement  in 
the  translation  of  the  Septuagint,  which  our  English 
version  has  followed.  The  object  of  these  lectures  is 
not  to  broach  novel  theories  or  suggest  any  new  ar- 
rangement of  Hebrew  Literature.  However  remote 
from  your  ordinary  consciousness  some  of  the  views 
here  stated  may  be,  they  are  in  every  case  what  has 
seemed  to  me  a  fair  summing  up  of  the  researches  of 
those  scholars  who  have  devoted  themselves  to  the 
investigation  of  this  literature. 


THE  BOOK  OF  PSALMS.  "Jj 

Let  US  now  turn  to  that  part  of  this  early  Hebrew 
literature  which  will  occupy  our  attention  during  the 
next  few  lectures  : 

"THE   BOOK   OF   PSALMS," 

and  on  consideration  I  have  deemed  it  better  to 
gather  in  the  form  of  lectures  the  points  of  greatest 
interest  as  to  its  collection,  arrangement  and  author- 
ship, rather  than  take  up  the  more  technical  exposi- 
tion of  some  of  the  poems  which,  I  imagine,  would 
be  of  less  interest  and  value  to  the  majority  of  my 
hearers. 

As  I  have  already  said,  the  "  Psalm  Book "  has  its 
proper  historical  position  as  the  opening  book  of  the 
third  and  last  collection  of  the  early  literature  of  the 
Jews — the  Kethiibim  or  "  Miscellaneous  Writings." 
That  it  stood  there  in  the  early  time  is  clear  from  the 
naming  of  the  entire  collection  of  these  writings  as 
"Psalms"  in  the  New  Testament,  a  method  of  naming 
a  book  or  collection  after  its  first  part  which  is  found 
until  this  day  in  the  orient,  and  is  familiar  to  every 
scholar  (so  in  Philo  and  H  Maccabees). 

It  is  no  argument  against  this  that  in  the  so-called 
Spanish  Manuscripts,  as  in  the  Masora,  Chronicles 
precedes,  as  it  was  placed  there  on  the  purely  subjec- 
tive ground  that  the  collection  might  begin  with  the 


7 8        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

genealogy  from  Adam ;  while  similar  in  kind  is  the 
reason  of  the  Talmudic  arrangement  of  Ruth  before 
Psalms — that  the  Davidic  songs  might  be  preceded 
by  a  sketch  of  David's  ancestors.  We  have  seen  that 
its  position  in  our  version  is  unfortunately  borrowed 
from  the  topical  arrangement  adopted  for  easy  refer- 
ence by  the  scholars  of  Ptolemy,  in  the  early  Greek 
translation  prepared  by  them  for  the  great  library  of 
the  Museum  at  Alexandria,  whose  books  by  the  way 
had  all  heated  the  baths  of  the  fanatical  bishop  Theo- 
philus  two  centuries  before  the  Caliph  Omar  or  Amru 
the  Arab  conqueror  of  Egypt  was  born.  Of  course 
you  know  the  very  good,  though  apocryphal  story  of 
Omar's  reply,  "  If  the  books  are  in  accord  with  the 
Koran  they  are  useless — if  not  they  are  heretical,  so 
in  any  case  to  be  destroyed." 

The  name  our  version  gives  this  collection  is  "The 
Book  of  Psalms."  This  is  not  however  the  name 
the  collection  bears  in  the  original — it  is  there  called 
D'^ri,^  Tehillim,  D'Sn,  Tillim,  Aramaic  X^l^,  Tillin, 
Praises,  i.  e.,  Songs  of  Praises,  or  Praise  Book.  This 
name  Praise  Book  I  had  thought  it  almost  too  self- 
evident  to  say,  had  not  my  attention  been  called 
to  a  misapprehension  on  this  very  point  since  last 
we  met,  was  first  given  by  the  final  editors  and  com- 
pilers of  this  collection,  whoever  they  may  have  been. 
In  fact,  the  titles  of  all  the  books  of  the  Hebrew 


TITLES  OF  THE  HEBREW  SCRIPTURES.        79 

Scriptures  are  from  the  hand  of  the  editor  rather  than 
the  author.  This  is  shown  very  clearly  by  the  great 
variance  of  these  titles  among  the  older  manuscripts 
of  the  original ;  moreover  the  utter  dissimilarity  of 
the  oldest  versions  from  the  original  in  the  matter  of 
titles,  indicates  that  there  was  in  the  early  time 
nothing  sacred  in  them  nor  any  authoritative  tradi- 
tion. If  ever  any  of  my  hearers  come  to  have  the 
pleasure  and  toil  of  studying  oriental  letters,  they 
will  find  that  the  title  of  his  work  is  that  which  the 
author  elaborates  with  most  loving  devotion.  As  the 
Arabs  say,  it  is  the  cord  on  which  he  hangs  the 
pearls  of  his  rhetoric.  So  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  each  of  these  several  books  had  at  one  time 
some  distinctive  title  of  its  own. 

A  few  traces  of  such  older  titles  are  still  found 
embodied  in  the  text  and  treated  there  as  the  first 
verse  of  the  book:  Habbakuk  i.  r.,  Nahum,  i.  i., 
Obadiah  i.,  Micah,  i.  i.,  etc.,  though  here  there  rises 
again  in  every  case,  the  question  as  to  whether  this 
or  that  particular  title  be  from  the  author  or  his  first 
editor. 

If  we  had  the  titles  which  the  authors  themselves 
gave  their  works,  they  would  doubtless  possess  the 
same  credibility  and  historical  authority,  be  it  less  or 
greater,  which  we  predicate  of  the  works  themselves. 
What  we  now  have,  or  rather,  call  titles  are  scarcely 


8o        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

more  than  very  late  descriptive  headlines,  and  a 
plainly  editorial  device  for  helping  the  memory  and 
facilitating  the  reading  of  the  rolls.  T  need  not  enter 
upon  or  endeavor  to  explain  the  almost  endless  di- 
versity of  these  titles  both  in  the  original  and  its 
early  translations.  As  they  exist  in  our  English 
King  James,  eleven  of  them  are  borrowed  from  ver- 
sions other  than  the  original.  Of  these  so-called 
titles,  twenty-two  are  names  of  persons,  either,  as  in 
the  case  of  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel,  Hosea,  Joel, 
Amos,  Obadiah,  Jonah,  Micah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk, 
Zephaniah,  Haggai,  and  Zechariah,  the  authors  of  the 
writings,  or,  as  in  the  case  of  Joshua,  Ruth,  Samuel, 
Ezra,  Nehemiah,  Esther,  Job  and  Daniel,  the  heroes 
of  the  period  the  book  describes.  Malachi  should 
be  reckoned  in  the  former  class  though  it  is  as  we 
have  seen  an  anonymous  prophecy — Malachi  being 
a  designation  and  not  a  proper  name. 

The  rest  of  the  titles,  fourteen  in  number,  are 
simply  descriptive  of  the  contents  of  the  books. 
Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers,  Deuteronomy, 
Judges,  Kings,  Chronicles,  Psalms,  Proverbs,  Ec- 
clesiastes,  Song  of  Solomon,  Lamentations.  Similar 
in  kind  with  this  latter  descriptive  class  is  the  name 
"  Book  of  Praises,"  which  is  found  in  the  original. 
We  might  justly  paraphrase  it  as  "Hymn  Book," 
S//vo^  {iiymnoSy  "  hymn  ")  being  as  you  know  a  "song 


HISTORY  OF  THE  NAME  PSALM.  8  I 

of  praise;"  and  this  will  agree  precisely  with  what  I 
will  presently  show  as  to  the  book  itself,  that  in  the 
form  we  have  it,  it  is  simply  the  Hymn  Book  pre- 
pared for  the  liturgical  song  of  the  second  Temple. 
The  name  we  have  just  mentioned  was  the  oldest 
name  of  the  collection,  and  is  so  recognized  by  the 
few  Christian  writers  of  the  first  centuries  whose 
knowledge  extended  to  the  Hebrew.  We  find  an 
allusion  to  it  as  early  as  the  second  century  by  Hip- 
polytus  of  Rome,  who  may  be  known  to  you  from 
Baron  Bunsen's  very  readable  book  "  Hippolytus  and 
his  Times  "  [Hippolytus  und  seine  zeit,  2  volumes, 
1853).  You  may  not  be  aware  that  it  is  to  Bunsen 
though  a  foreigner  and  a  diplomate,  we  are  in* no 
small  degree  indebted  for  the  re-awakening  of  the 
critical  study  of  the  Old  Testament  in  England, 
which  had  almost  lain  dormant  since  Castell  and 
the  great  scholars  who  co-operated  with  him  in  the 
London  Polyglot. 

Somewhat  later  this  same  name  is  mentioned  as 
being  the  original  one  in  the  preface  of  Jerome's 
revision  of  the  old  Latin  translation,  which  is  now 
known  to  us  as  the  Vulgate,  a  revision  which 
has  shared  the  fate  of  almost  all  critical  versions  of 
the  Scriptures.  In  his  own  age  its  author  was  ana- 
thematized even  by  so  great  an  authority  as  Augus- 
tine, as  an  innovator  and  disturber  of  men's  minds, 

4* 


82         ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

only  in  a  later  time  to  be  canonized  by  a  grateful 
church,  and  to  have  his  version  pronounced  by  the 
Tridentine  Council  the  ultimate  appeal  in  all  matters 
of  faith. 

This  name,  Tehillim,  or  Hymn  Book,  further  pos- 
sesses among  the  Jews  an  unbroken  tradition  in  its 
favor,  so  there  can  remain  no  reasonable  doubt  that 
it  is  the  title  which  was  given  this  collection  by  those 
who  first  collated  and  edited  it  into  its  present  shape. 

Our  common  name,  Psalms,  comes  from  the  Greek 
translation  to  which  I  have  already  alluded,  as  having 
in  one  way  or  another  such  influence  in  shaping  the 
nomenclature  of  our  English  version. 

WaX[j.6:;  {Psalmos,  Psalm),  in  Greek  means  prima- 
rily the  twanging  of  a  harp  or  any  stringed  instru- 
ment— then  a  Song  which  is  sung  to  such  stringed 
accompaniment,  or  later  to  any  musical  accompani- 
ment, finally  means  no  more  than  "  a  piece  set  to 
music."  In  this  latter  sense  it  is  used  to  translate  the 
original  ""^f?  mizmor. — "  A  Song  to  be  sung  to  the 
orchestral  accompaniment  of  the  Temple,"  which  we 
find  in  the  inscription  of  fifty-seven  of  these  Psalms. 
■  Of  the  musical  arrangements  of  the  Temple  service 
I  will  speak  later,  but  be  good  enough  to  look  a 
moment  at  the  fourth  Psalm  for  the  origin  of  this 
word.  We  lose  in  the  English  "  Psalm  of  David"  the 
real  pith  and  meaning  of  the  inscription,  whose  sense 


HISTORY  OF  THE  NAME  PSALM.  83 

is  "  belonging  to  David,  that  is,  to  the  collection  of 
sacred  songs  called  after  David's  name,"  a  literary 
note  as  to  the  author  for  the  benefit  of  the  reader — 
the  further  musical  note  {inizmor),  added  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Temple-choir,  indicates  that  this  com- 
position was  to  be  accompanied  in  the  service  by  the 
music  of  the  orchestra;  the  two  notes  having  no 
connection,  and  being  probably  from  different  hands 
— one  from  the  literary,  the  other  from  the  musical 
editor  of  this  collection.  We  should  have, — "  by 
David,  an  orchestral  melody."  The  Greek  renders 
this  musical  note  fairly  well  by  ^Tai/^oc,  psalmos. 

As  it  was  found  in  the  reading  of  so  large  a  num- 
ber of  the  Songs,  (and  moreover  when  the  Greek 
translation  was  made,  this  collection  had  long  been 
used  in  the  musical  service  of  the  Temple,)  they  give 
to  the  entire  collection  the  name  WaX[j.6i,  psalmoi^ 
"musical  compositions,"  or  "musical  collection" — 
"of  the  Temple,"  of  course,  being  understood. 

You  are  doubtless  aware  that  all  the  Christian 
writings  which  are  collected  in  the  New  Testament 
were,  perhaps  with  the  exception  of  the  Gospel  of 
Matthew  and  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  written  for 
Greek  speaking  peoples,  few  if  any  of  whom  were 
conversant  with  the  Hebrew.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  the  writers  when  referring  to  the  older  Scripture 
both   in   their   quotations    and    their    nomenclature 


84        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

make  use  of  the  Greek   translation   and  not  of  the 
original. 

The  Bi^koz  Walnojv,  "  Psalm  Book  "  mentioned  in 
Luke  XX.  42,  Acts  i.  20,  is  the  title  taken  from  the 
Septuagint,  and  shows  that  as  early  as  our  era  this 
title  was  the  common  one  in  the  Greek  version  for 
this  collection. 

So  far  there  could  be  no  misapprehension  in  the 
name;  to  all  the  Greek  speaking  peoples  the  name 
Psalm  carried  the  meaning  of  a  song  set  to  music. 
The  Book  of  Psalms  was  understood  as  the  collection 
of  such  songs  used  in  the  musical  service  of  the  Tem- 
ple. The  confusion  arises  with  the  old  Latin  version, 
made  during  the  second  century  in  the  provincial 
Latin  of  North  Africa  and  from  imperfect  manuscripts 
of  the  Greek,  but  which  early  gained  such  hold  upon 
the  people  of  the  Latin  tongue,  that  it  was  only  after 
a  long  struggle  and  many  anathemas  that  the  later 
version  from  the  original  by  Jerome  succeeded  in 
replacing  it.  In  the  Psalter  however  this  old  version 
had  acquired  a  peculiar  sacredness  through  its  con- 
stant use  in  the  daily  service,  and  neither  the  clergy 
nor  people  were  willing  to  give  up  for  a  new  version, 
however  accurate,  the  old  Psalter  whose  very  words 
and  rhythm  had  grown  to  be  an  integral  part  of  their 
worship. 

I   cannot   here   go    into  the   history  of  the  Latin 


HISTORY  OF  THE  NAME  PSALM.  85 

versions,  nor  would  it  be  profitable  that  I  should  do 
so.  Jerome's  translation  from  the  original  text  in  the 
Psalter  did  not  gain  acceptance  beyond  scholars. 
The  old  Latin  with  all  the  errors  of  the  Septuagint 
and  a  goodly  number  which  must  be  laid  at  its  own 
door,  continued  with  slight  revisions  in  the  Roman 
and  Galilean  Psalter  to  be  the  service  book  of  the 
Roman  Church,  and  at  the  Reformation  was  simply 
translated  into  the  vernacular  by  those  bodies  who 
retained  the  liturgical  forms. 

It  is  to  this  old  Latin  version  we  owe,  I  can  hardly 
say  a  debt  of  gratitude  for  our  word  Psalm.  If  you 
ever  come  to  compare  this  old  Latin  with  the  Greek, 
you  will  find  it,  in  its  minute  and  painful  verbalness, 
betraying  not  the  accuracy  but  the  ignorance  of  the 
translators.  Whenever  they  meet  with  a  word  which 
is  obscure,  they  simply  transcribe  it  as  best  they  can 
with  Latin  letters.  So  it  is  that  there  has  come  into 
the  Psalter,  both  in  the  inscriptions  and  the  Psalms 
themselves,  a  mass  of  mongrel  words  belonging  to  no 
language  under  the  heaven,  that  have  furnished 
food  for  much  mystical  speculation  which  might  as 
well  have  been  spat"ed. 

Most  important  of  these  creations  of  the  old  Latin 
translators  is  the  word  Psalm.  Evidently  at  a  loss 
for  the  meaning  of  the  Greek  Walfio^,  they  adopted 
the  easy  method  of  transliterating  it  with  Latin  letters 


86        ORIGIN  AKD  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

into  Psalmus.  Of  course,  to  the  Latin  peoples,  to 
whom  the  word  had  no  association,  no  natural  signi- 
ficance, it  became  emptied  of  all  the  meaning,  "  Song 
set  to  music,"  with  the  allusion  to  the  Temple  service 
ever  borne  with  it  to  the  Alexandrian  Jews.  It  con- 
veyed no  idea  extending  beyond  this  collection,  or 
some  part  of  it.  In  this  sense  it  came  into  use  in 
ecclesiastical  Latin,  and  with  unessential  changes  of 
form,  has  passed  into  all  the  languages  of  Europe, 
which  have  come  under  the  influence  of  the  Latin 
Church.  In  good  English  usage  the  word  carries 
with  it  no  shade  of  its  original  meaning  nor  of  its 
history.  It  has  almost  come  to  be  a  proper  name, 
designating,  in  the  plural,  Psalms,  this  collection  of 
Hebrew  sacred  poems — in  the  singular,  Psalm,  some 
one  of  them  ;  thence  in  modern  English  it  signifies 
any  song  or  poem  written  after  the  same  fashion. 

I  trust  I  have  made  clear  to  you  the  history  of  our 
name  Psalms,  i.  It  originated  in  the  Greek  translation, 
where  it  designates  the  collection  as  one  of  "  Songs 
set  to  music,"  in  a  word"  Music  Book  of  the  Temple." 
2.  That  the  name  as  we  now  have  it,  evacuated  of  all 
its  old  meaning,  and  simply  designating,  as  a  pro- 
per name,  this  collection,  comes  from  the  Latin  of  the 
old  Itala.  Should  we  too  closely  interrogate  the  his- 
tory of  our  nomenclature,  in  any  department,  I  fear 
our  vocabulary  would  be  small.     The  name  has  be- 


HISTORY  OF  THE  NAME  PSALTER.  8/ 

come  fixed  in  the  best  technical  and  popular  usage, 
and  as  it  conveys  an  intelligible  idea,  there  is  no 
reason  for  a  change.  Only  bear  in  mind  that  the 
name  is  not  the  original  one  of  this  collection,  and 
even  in  the  sense  in  which  we  now  use  it  in  English, 
it  has  lost  its  characteristic  meaning. 

Another  name  in  common  use  with  us  for  this  col- 
lection is  "  Psalter."  As  the  name  Psalm  which  we 
have  just  explained,  this  also  comes  from  the  Greek. 
Wahijpiop  {Psalteriiini)  is  a  stringed  instrument  in  re- 
gard to  which  there  is  some  dispute  among  archaeolo- 
gists as  to  whether  it  were  over  or  under-strung,  that 
is,  as  to  whether  it  were  a  harp  or  a  lyre.  The  name 
seems  to  have  been  used  metaphorically  by  the  Jews 
of  Alexandria  for  their  Psalm  Book,  just  as  the 
present  wont  is  to  call  our  collections  of  sacred  melo- 
dies The  Harp,  The  Lyre,  The  Trumpet  or  some 
similar  name.  It  was  probably  not  given  by  the 
.  Greek  translators,  but  through  long  popular  usage 
grew  to  be  the  generally  accepted  name  of  the  collec- 
tion among  the  Greek- speaking  communities  of  the 
dispersion.  It  was  the  Harp  which,  as  they  met  from 
Sabbath  to  Sabbath,  afar  among  the  Gentiles,  recalled 
to  them  the  sacred  music  of  their  Temple. 

The  early  Latin  versions  were  good  borrowers, 
even  if  they  were  nothing  else,  so  this  term  could  not 
fail  them.     That  they  do  not  understand  it  is  of  small 


88         ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

moment.  They  have  the  Latin  alphabet  and  can 
transhterate,  so  the  Latin  is  speedily  blessed  with  a 
new  word,  Psalterium,  or  perhaps  I  should  say  a  new 
meaning  for  an  older  word,  as  Psalterium  had  been 
borrowed  from  the  Greek  as  early  as  the  Augustan 
age,  in  its  original  sense  of  harp. 

In  ecclesiastical  Latin  this  name  came  to  be  the 
technical  term  for  the  Psalm  collection  as  used  in 
the  Church  service.  Thus  we  have  the  celebrated 
Galilean  and  Roman  Psalters,  so  named  from  their 
respective  use  in  the  Galilean  or  Roman  Church  ser- 
vice, which  represent  the  first  unsuccessful  attempt 
of  Jerome  to  improve  the  text  of  the  old  Latin,  and 
to  the  former  of  which  the  Anglican  Prayer  Book  is 
in  no  small  degree  beholden. 

From  the  Latin  the  name  passed  in  a  similar  sense 
into  all  the  modern  languages  of  Europe.  In  English 
we  find  the  term  most  in  use  by  those  reformed  reli- 
gious bodies  in  whose  service  the  reading  of  the 
Psalms  forms  some  stated  part. 

Psalter  then  is  a  Greek  word — meaning  Harp,  which 
becomes  first  the  vulgar,  then  the  generally  accepted 
name  of  their  collection  of  sacred  melodies  among  the 
Jews  of  the  Dispersion.  Passing  into  the  Latin  with 
the  loss  of  its  original  meaning,,it  becomes  the  techni- 
cal name  of  the  Psalm  collection,  as  used  statedly  in  the 
service — a  meaning  it  still  largely  retains  in  English. 


LITER AR  V  ARRANGEMENT  OF  THE  PSAL  TER.     89 

There  are  other  less  important  names  in  use  in 
Enghsh  to  designate  this  collection,  but  I  cannot 
pause  to  speak  of  them  now.  You  perceive  our 
common  names  all  come  from  the  Greek  translation. 
Should  we  call  the  book  as  its  original  editors  have 
done,  we  should  be  obliged  to  say,  "  Praise  Book,  or 
Hymn  Book." 

But  let  us  now  turn  to  the  Arrangement  of  the 
collection. 

The  "  Book  of  Psalms"  is  a  collection  of  religious 
poems  from  all  ages  and  styles  of  Hebrew  literature, 
which  have  been  critically  and  metrically  edited  for 
use  in  the  service  of  song  of  the  Second  Temple. 

None  of  the  early  literature  of  the  Hebrew  people 
which  has  come  down  to  us  is  so  varied  in  character, 
none  bears  such  traces  of  editorial  emendation  and 
arrangement  as  does  this  collection. 

Let  me  ask  you  to  examine  with  me, 

I.  Its  Literary,  and  H.  Its  Liturgical  Arrmigement. 

The  Psalms,  as  we  now  have  them,  are  divided  into 
Five  Books,  which  are  clearly  distinguished  from  one 
another  in  the  original  by  appropriate  spacing  and 
by  the  names,  Second,  Third,  Fourth  and  Fifth 
Books  before  each  of  the  succeeding  sections. 

The  only  traces  we  have  of  these  books  in  the 
English  version  are  the  closing  formulae  or  doxolo- 
gies  at  the   end   of  each  section,  which  are  lost   to 


90        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

the  ordinary  reader  by  their  being  attached  as  a  final 
verse  to  the  preceding  Psalm. 

The  first  book  is  fi-om  Psalm  ii.  to  Psalm  xli., 
with  the  closing  formula,  Psalm  xli.  13. 

The  second  book,  Psalms  xlii — Ixxii.,  the  formula 
Psalm  Ixxii.  18,  19, — on  the  twentieth  verse  I  will 
speak  in  a  moment. 

The  third  book,  Psalms  Ixxiii — Ixxxix. — final  for- 
mula. Psalm  Ixxxix.  52. 

The  fourth  book,  Psalms  xc-cvi.,  formula  Psalm 
cvi.  48. 

The  fifth  book,  Psalms  cvii.-cxlix. ;  as  a  closing 
formula,  we  may  regard  Psalm  cl.  which  became  a 
sort  of  epilogue  to  the  entire  collection  when  this  fifth 
and  final  book  was  added  to  it. 

What  we  call  the  first  Psalm  was  also  added  in 
the  final  making  up  of  the  collection  as  an  introduc- 
tion or  prologue,  and  does  not  in  the  early  time  seem 
to  have  been  counted  in  the  number  of  the  Psalms. 
If  you  will  turn  to  Acts  xiii.  33  you  will  find  in 
our  English  version  Psalm  ii.  7  quoted  from  the 
second  Psalm,  but  we  are  able  to  say  on  manuscript 
authority  (for  which  see  Tischendorf's  eighth  edition) 
that  it  was  quoted  in  the  original  hand  as  from  the 
first  Psalm.  Some  later  reader  finding  the  quotation 
in  what  in  his  Psalter  had  become  the  second  Psalm, 
corrects  what  he  supposes  was  the  oversight  of  the 


LITERARY  ARRANGEMENT  OF  THE  PSALTER.      91 

original  writer,  by  setting  second  in  the  place  of  first. 
From  this  later  hand  it  is  that  second  in  this  passage 
has  come  into  the  received  Greek  text,  and  thence 
by  translation  into  the  English.  We  can  see  now  how 
the  writer  of  the  Acts  could  with  perfect  accuracy 
have  quoted  this  passage  as  in  the  first  Psalm,  and 
have  a  striking  illustration  of  the  little  learning  which 
has  done  so  much  to  improve  and  destroy  for  us 
nearly  all  the  literary  remains  of  antiquity. 

The  number  of  Psalms  in  our  version  is  one  hundred 
and  fifty — merely  an  accidental  agreement  with  the 
later  form  of  the  original.  One  hundred  and  fifty  is 
not,  as  many  suppose,  either  the  sacred  or  constant 
number  of  the  Psalms.  The  number  at  an  earlier 
time  more  common  in  the  original  was  one  hundred 
and  forty-seven  gained  from  the  same  material  by  a 
somewhat  dissimilar  arrangement.  It  is  this  number 
that  the  Hagadic  exegesis  of  the  Talmud — an 
exegesis  whose  highest  flight  was  to  make  acrostic — 
has  in  view  when  it  compares  the  Psalms  to  the  years 
of  Jacob.  We  know,  moreover,  that  in  the  Hebrew 
manuscripts  of  a  different  school  from  those  on  which 
our  printed  text  is  based  the  number  is  one  hundred 
and  forty-nine.  Though  the  Septuagint  has  also 
one  hundred  and  fifty  Psalms,  they  are  arranged 
either  by  union  or  separation  of  several  of  the  poems 
in  a  way  materially  different  from  that  in  our  version 


92        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

— it  unites  into  one,  Psalms  ix.,  x.,  and  Psalms  cxiv., 
cxv.,  and  divides  into  two,  Psalm  cxvi.  (verses  1-9 
and  10-19),  and  Psalm  cxlvii.  (verses  i-ii  and  12-20). 
In  this  arrangement  of  the  Greek  the  Vulgate  has 
followed,  and  it  remains  the  common  usage  of  the 
Latin  Church. 

The  Greek  translators  add  to  their  collection  an 
apocryphal  Psalm,  known  as  the  hundred  and  fifty- 
first,  which  the  later  Syriac,  Arabic  and  Ethiopic 
versions  copy  from  them.  It  pretends  to  be  the 
thanksgiving  of  David  on  his  victory  over  Goliath, 
and  I  had  thought  of  reading  it  to  you.  However,  I 
will  not  occupy  your  time  with  it.  It  is  simply  of  no 
value,  and  bears  on  its  face  such  clear  marks  of  manu- 
facture that  even  Ptolemy's  scholars  who  drew  into 
their  canon  all  accessible  Hebrew  Literature,  whether 
good  or  bad,  have  to  state  in  a  note  their  disbelief 
in  its  genuineness. 

As  regards  the  number  and  arrangement  of  the 
Psalms  in  our  English  version,  though  this  agrees  in 
the  main  with  the  printed  editions  of  the  Hebrew,  it 
seems  to  the  best  scholars  probable  that  in  several  in- 
stances for  textual  and  internal  reasons  it  would  be 
difficult  to  make  clear  to  you,  it  should  be  slightly 
changed.  If  ever  you  have  an  old  oriental  manuscript 
in  your  hands,  and  notice  how  with  but  the  slightest 
spacing,  without  number  and  without  other  outward 


LITERAR  V  ARRANGEMENT  OF  THE  PSAL  TER. 


93 


indication,  the  sections  of  a  book  or  tlie  cantos  of  a 
poem  are  divided,  you  can  understand  how  without 
design  or  conscious  intent,  but  simply  through  the 
haste  or  carelessness  of  copyists,  there  has  often 
come  into  the  later  manuscripts  an  arrangement  in 
many  respects  dissimilar  from  that  of  the  original. 
It  is  a  phenomenon  found  in  all  literature,  which 
has  come  to  us  in  a  written  state,  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  Hebrew  literature  should  be  exempted 
from  it. 

One  of  the  most  important  tasks  of  the  science 
known  to  us  as  "  textual  criticism,"  is  to  determine 
from  internal  evidence  whether  the  arrangement  of 
the  matter,  as  we  find  it  in  the  late  manuscripts  which 
have  come  to  us,  is  that  of  the  original  authors  or 
editors.  This  kind  of  criticism,  applied  to  the  text  of 
the  Psalms,  leads  us  to  believe  that  the  arrangement 
of  our  English  version,  in  one  or  two  cases,  differs 
from  that  of  the  original  editors.  It  seems  probable 
that  originally  a  few  Psalms,  which  are  now  separated, 
formed  but  one  poem,  namely : 

Psalms  ix.,  x.,  both  parts  of  one  long,  alphabetic 
poem  and  correctly  united  in  the  Greek. 

Psalms  xlii.,  xliii.,  shown  to  be  but  one  Psalm  by 
their  common  style  and  rhythm,  and  so  found  in 
our  best  manuscripts. 

Psalm    cxvii.,  with    its   two  verses,  seems    to   be 


94        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

merely  the  opening  verses  of  the  following  Psalm, 
cxviii.,  or  the  close  of  the  preceding  Psalm,  cxvi. 

The  further  union  of  Psalms  cxiii.,  cxiv.,  and  Psalms 
cxxxiv.,  cxxxv.,  which  not  a  few  scholars  have  ap- 
proved, does  not  seem  to  me  to  rest  on  either  in- 
ternal or  manuscript  grounds  of  sufficient  weight. 

It  seems  probable  that  there  are  united  as  one 
Psalm  in  our  version,  poems  which  were  originally- 
separate,  namely: 

Psalm  xxiv.,  one  poem,  verses  i-6;  a  new  and 
entirely  different  one,  verses  7-10. 

Psalm  xxvii.,  first  poem,  verses  1-6;  second  poem, 
verses  7-14. 

Psalm  xxxii.,  first  poem,  verses  1-7 ;  second  poem, 
Verses  8-1 1. 

Psalm  xix.,  is  also  regarded  by  many  as  composed 
of  two  separate  poems. 

That  each  of  the  three  Psalms,  xxiv.,  xxvii.,  xxxii., 
is  composed  of  two  poems,  is  clear  to  any  one  who 
has  sufficient  acquaintance  with  the  original  to  appre- 
ciate the  evidence  of  literary  form  and  style.  It  is 
not  clear,  however,  and  this  is  the  point  I  wish  to 
make,  that  their  combination  is  due  to  the  error  of 
copyists ;  it  is  rather  the  work  of  the  first  editors, 
who  combined  them  for  liturgical  reasons  I  shall 
hereafter  make  plain  to  you.  ^ 

Our   arrangement   then   agrees  in  the   main  with 


COLLECTION  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


95 


what  we  have  reason  to  believe  was  the  original  one. 
The  only  changes  we  can  make  in  our  version  with 
reasonable  surety  are  the  combination  into  one  Psalm 
of  Psalms  ix.,  and  x.,  xlii.,  and  xliii.,  cxvi.,  and  cxvii., 
leaving,  you  perceive,  one  hundred  and  forty-seven 
Psalms,  just  the  number  mentioned  as  the  old  one  in 
the  Talmudic  legend  spoken  of  above. 

We  are  told  in  the  Midrash^  to  Psalm  iii.,  that 
when  Rabbi  Joshua  Ben  Levi  was  beginning  some 
investigations  into  the  authorship  of  the  Psalms,  he 
was  arrested  at  the  very  outset  by  a  voice  from  Hea- 
ven saying  to  him,  "  Wake  not  those  who  have  fallen 
asleep — disturb  not  the  grave  of  our  king  David."  It 
is  a  voice  which  has  not  reached  modern  scholars,  for 
no  book  of  antiquity  has  been  submitted  to  such 
minute  and  constant  investigation. 

The  result  of  these  investigations  in  respect  to  our 
next  point,  the  collection  of  these  poems  into  their 
present  shape,  is  very  clear,  and  on  all  the  essential 
points  practically  unanimous. 

Please  remember  the  object  for  which  this  collec- 
tion was  made,  to  furnish  a  hymn-book  for  the  service 
of  the  Second  Temple,  and  you  will  have  a  clue  to 
help  you  in  our  investigation.  It  was  not  designed  as 
an  anthology  from  their  best  poems,  nor  was  it  com- 

1 A  Midrash  is  an  old  Jewish  exposition  or  commentary,  usually  full 
of  anecdote.     (T.) 


96 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


menced  and  carried  through  with  any  purely  Hterary 
motive.  The  first  and  sole  object  of  its  editors  was  to 
compile  from  the  religious  poetry  of  their  nation  a  col- 
lection of  sacred  songs  for  the  worship  of  the  Temple. 
We  saw  in  the  last  hour  that  the  shape  in  which 
we  have  the  Hebrew  literature  is  post-exilic,  i.  e.,  it  is 
the  result  of  the  movement  then  inaugurated  to  place 
their  sacred  literature,  much  of  which  had  been  scat- 
tered or  destroyed  through  the  Assyrian  invasions,  in 
some  more  permanent  and  compendious  form,  which 
would  be  safe  amid  the  new  dangers  which  environed 
and  threatened  to  obliterate  it. 

One  of  the  first  of  these  collections  would  be  of 
religious  songs  for  their  re-established  Temple  wor- 
ship. Here  the  compilers  would  not  be  obliged  to 
make  an  original  collection — they  needed  simply 
to  draw  on  the  old  ^'  Hymn  Books  "  of  the  former 
Temple.  That  such  existed  we  should  a  priori  be  led 
to  suppose  from  the  necessities  of  the  musical  service 
of  the  former  Temple,  as  to  which  we  shall  presently 
speak.  Not  only  this,  but  we  have  preserved  in 
Psalm  Ixxii.,  20,  the  very  name  of  the  principal  source 
which  our  present  editors  have  made  use  of  in  form- 
ing their  collection,  the  1"!^  ^'^^^n  Tephilloth  David, 
"The  Prayers  of  Uavid,"  the  verse  here  being  the 
closing  formula  of  the  old  roll  containing  this  Davidic 
collection,  which  the  new  editors  with  the  unthinking 


INSCRIPTIONS  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


97 


accuracy  so  characteristic  of  the  Shemitic  mind,  have 
taken  into  their  collection  with  the  poem  which 
immediately  preceded  it.  That  these  "  Prayers  of 
David "  can  not  refer  to  the  previous  Psalms  or 
Psalm  Book  scarcely  needs  the  saying,  as  many  of 
these  are  referred  to  other  authors  (xlii.-xlix.-l.)  It 
is  of  a  kind  with  the  subscription  we  find,  Jeremiah 
li.,  64 ;  Job  xxxi.,  40. 

The  name  translated  here  "  Prayer  "  means  rather 
"Devotional  Hymn,"  "  Sacred  Hymn."  It  is  found 
in  the  original  as  the  inscription  of  Psalms  xvii., 
Ixxxvi.,  xc,  cii.,  cxlii.,  also  in  Habakkuk  iii.,  i,  and  in 
Hannah's  triumphant  Magnificat,  i  Samuel  ii. 

Many  scholars  suppose  that  these  "  Sacred  Hymns 
of  David  "  were  an  old  Temple-collection  begun  by 
David,  to  whom  the  organization  of  the  religious 
music  is  very  constantly  referred,  and  which  to  a  large 
degree,  though  not  exclusively,  was  composed  of  his 
own  melodies.  Whenever  we  have  an  inscription  in 
our  version  stating  that  the  Psalm  is  "  of  David  "  it 
is  almost  invariably  a  mistranslation  of  the  original. 

The  original  "I'l")  =  (literally  "  to  David  ")  is  a  note 
made  by  the  compilers  having  the  simple  meaning 
that  the  poem  in  question  either  was  taken  by  them 
from  this  Davidic  collection  or  supposed  by  them  to 
belong  to  it — this  notice  of  course  giving  no  judg- 
ment as  to  whether  any  particular  Psalm  be  of 
5 


98        ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

David's  own  personal  composition  or  not,  merely- 
stating  it  belonged  to  the  collection  which  bore  his 
name,  and  leaving  open  to  us  to  decide  from  the  in- 
ternal evidence  of  the  <  poem  itself,  and  such  outside 
allusion  as  may  be  accessible,  whether  it  be  his  or  not. 
I  am  aware  that  this  view  can  not  be  found  in  the 
commentaries,  while  our  lexicons  give  a  force  to  the 
much  discussed  Hebrew  particle  which  they  have 
borrowed  from  their  knowledge  of  its  translation  in 
the  modern  versions.  I  am  convinced  however  on  a 
careful  investigation  of  the  textual  phenomena  of  the 
Psalms  that  it  is  the  only  theory  that  can  enable  us, 
with  any  regard  to  the  results  of  linguistic  and  critical 
study,  to  retain  our  respect  for  the  old  tradition  as  to 
their  origin,  preserved  to  us  in  the  editorial  inscrip- 
tions. The  English  translation  "of  David"  "by 
David,"  is  not  only  incorrect  in  itself,  but  also  mislead- 
ing, as  the  theories  built  upon  it  satisfactorily  attest. 
I  say  the  note  as  to  the  authorship  is  clearly  of 
editorial  origin.  Take  any  modern  Hymn  Book,  and 
from  whom  is  the  foot  or  head-note  as  to  the  author 
of  the  hymn  or  tune  ?  Clearly  from  the  compiler  or 
editor  of  the  collection,  who,  if  he  be  accurate  and 
painstaking,  endeavors  to  gather  information  as  to  the 
age  and  authorship  of  the  hymns  in  his  collection  from 
all  sources  he  deems  trustworthy.  It  would  seem  a 
fact  too  patent  to  need  proof  that  Wesley  or  Watts 


INSCRIPTIONS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  99 

did  not  write  over  each  of  their  hymns  "  by  Charles 
Wesley,"  or  "by  Isaac  Watts."  When  we  find 
such  an  inscription  in  any  hymn  book  of  to-day, 
no  one  for  a  moment  supposes  that  it  has  been 
copied  from  the  manuscript  of  the  author,  but  it  is 
universally  recognized  as  a  note  by  the  editor  for 
the  information  of  his  reader.  And  yet  a  theory 
precisely  like  this  has  been  held  by  many  scholars  as 
to  the  Psalms,  that  David,  or  the  other  singers  when 
they  wrote  a  poem,  wrote  over  it  "  by  David  "  and  the 
like,  and  the  later  editors  have  simply  transcribed 
with  the  poem  this  also,  and  so  it  must  have  equal 
authority  with  the  poem  itself,  and  must  be  regarded 
as  a  sure  clue  to  the  authorship  of  the  Psalm. 

If  you  are  at  all  conversant  with  the  literature  of 
the  Psalms, you  will  know  with  what  hot  words  the 
question  of  the  authority  and  origin  of  these  inscrip- 
tions has  been  debated,  and  what  seas  of  ink  have 
been  shed  in  settling  it.  Perhaps  I  may  now,  as  well 
as  later,  sum  up  the  controversy  in  a  few  words. 

The  Jewish  schoolmen  and  doctors  were  too  busy 
in  the  early  time  with  their  questions  of  liturgy  and 
ethics,  which  they  have  embodied  for  us  in  the  Tal- 
mud, to  produce  any  rational  or  critical  exegesis. 
The  Midrash,  perverting  the  truth  which  lies  hid  in 
their  old  tradition  that  God  has  revealed  His  Law  in 
seventy-two  languages,  i.  c,  has  given  it  a  new  force 


lOO     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

and  meaning  to  each  people  to  whom  it  comes, 
endeavored  to  read  as  many  interpretations  as  pos- 
sible into  the  word  of  Scripture,  and  so  degenerated 
into  a  system  of  conceits  or  allegorizing.  When 
the  Talmud  had  been  completed  and  they  came 
to  study  and  explain  the  Scripture,  it  was  to  count 
its  letters  and  invent  a  subtle  system  of  signs  to 
mark  their  quantity.  Do  you  ask  bread  of  the  Jew- 
ish schoolmen,  they  give  you  a  stone,  for  in  the  very 
things  in  which  they  had  all  the  tradition,  all  the 
knowledge,  and  might  have  been  the  world's  teachers, 
they  have  left  it  in  ignorance.  But  no  one  dares 
bring  a  railing  accusation  against  their  scholarship. 
They  were,  through  the  mediaeval  time,  when  not 
only  their  books  but  their  bodies  lit  the  fires  of 
bigotry  and  hypocrisy,  in  their  purity  of  life,  their 
good  citizenship,  and  their  thrift,  the  very  leaven  of 
society.  It  is  alone  the  result  of  the  environments 
into  which  they  had  been  forced  by  misfortune  that 
their  exposition  of  their  own  writings  has  remained 
so  meagre  and  of  so  small  value. 

Scholars  in  these  later  times. have  been  obliged  to 
lay  anew  the  foundations  for  the  study  of  their  na- 
tional literature,  which  they  themselves  were  unable 
to  lay  broad  and  deep  enough. 

They  evidently  did  not  understand  these  inscrip- 
tions, and  often  treat  them  as  the  Muhammedan  theo- 


INSCRIPTIONS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  lOI 

logians  do  the  not  dissimilar  inscriptions  to  the 
Surahs  of  the  Koran,  as  unrevealed  mysteries  into 
which  it  is  unlawful  to  look. 

Few  Christian  scholars  of  the  early  time  knew  the 
Psalms,  save  through  the  Greek  and  Latin  versions, 
by  whose  transliteration,  rather  than  translation,  the 
sense  of  the  inscription  was  rendered  unintelligible. 
Text  and  notes  were  not  distinguished  by  them,  and 
they  read  to  a  people  even  more  ignorant  than  them- 
selves the  names  of  tunes  and  directions  to  the  Temple 
orchestra  as  though  they  were  part  of  the  inspired 
Scripture.  It  was  alone  the  acute  mind  of  Theodore 
of  Mopsuestia  (a.  d.  429),  most  original  among  the 
Church  Fathers,  condemned  as  a  heretic  by  the  party 
of  the  ins  because  he  happened  to  be  of  the  party  of 
the  outs,  who  seemed  to  have  divined  the  real  differ- 
ence of  these  inscriptions  and  notes,  but  his  was  the 
only  voice  in  a  thousand  years. 

The  scholars  of  the  Protestant  Reformation,  which 
was  the  return  to  the  authority  of  an  infallible  Scrip- 
ture from  the  authority  of  an  infallible  Church,  had 
tasks  of  establishing  the  doctrine  of  Scripture  more 
essential  than  questions  as  to  its  text. 

With  the  increasing  study  of  the  text  of  Scripture, 
and  the  comparison  of  its  versions,  together  with  the 
growing  knowledge  of  the  other  oriental  languages 
and  their  literary  usage,  these  mysterious  inscriptions 


I02     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

were  gradually  unravelled.  As  it  became  apparent 
that  they  were  musical  and  literary  notes,  it  also  be- 
came apparent  that  they  were  no  part  of  the  inspired 
text  of  Scripture,  but  mere  remarks  added  to  give  in- 
formation to  the  reader  or  facilitate  the  use  of  the  col- 
lection in  the  Temple  service.  Among  the  first  to 
announce  this  view  was  Richard  Simon,  a  priest  of 
the  Oratory  at  Paris,  but  he  was  met  by  a  storm  of  op- 
position which  has  not  yet  altogether  ceased.  Bibli- 
cal scholarship  here,  as  too  often  elsewhere,  forgetting 
that  any  inspiration  must  inhere  in  the  message  and 
not  in  its  literary  form,  took  stand  on  ground  where 
it  has  had  to  make  a  losing  fight,  in  which  many 
who  would  fain  have  wished  it  well,  could  not  join. 

The  literature  of  this  inscription  discussion  on  one 
side  or  another,  is  a  very  large,  and,  I  might  add, 
profitless  one. 

There  are,  probably,  at  the  present  day,  no  scholars 
whose  opinion  carries  weight,  who  recognize  in  these 
inscriptions  more  than  an  editorial  origin  and  an  edi- 
torial authority.  Some  of  the  grounds  that  have  led 
them  to  reach  this  view  are  the  following : 

I.  That  it  is  contrary  to  all  we  know  of  Shemitic 
style  for  the  author  to  add  notes  or  inscriptions  such 
as  these  to  his  poems  or  works,  of  course  a  technical 
argument  of  weight  to  those  alone  who  can  appreciate 
such  style. 


INSCRIPTIONS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  103 

II.  That  in  the  early  time  they  were  regarded  so 
clearly  as  editorial,  that  there  was  little  scruple  in 
either  changing  them  or  omitting  them  altogether, 
when  the  later  scribe  or  translator  imagined  he  had 
better  information  as  to  the  authorship  of  any  Psalm, 

The  manuscripts  of  the  Hebrew  are  far  from  agree- 
ing in  them,  but  even  still  better  illustrative  of  their 
lack  of  authority  is  their  form  in  the  Septuagint 
This  old  Greek  version  gives  an  inscription  of  author- 
ship of  some  kind  to  every  Psalm,  even  the  late  Hal- 
lelujah Psalms ;  ascribes  to  David  some  thirteen  or 
fourteen  which  the  Hebrew  does  not,  and  drops  his 
name  from  several  ascribed  to  him  in  the  original. 
It  gives  a  number  of  historical  data  in  addition  to  or 
at  variance  with  those  of  the  Hebrew  text.  Some  of 
the  Psalms,  which  in  the  Hebrew  are  inscriptionless, 
it  ascribes,  without  any  reason,  to  Jeremiah  or  one  of 
the  later  prophets.  Of  so  little  importance  do  they 
seem,  that  some  of  the  versions  made  from  the  Greek 
omit  them  altogether,  from  reasons  of  convenience. 

Do  you  turn  to  the  Targum,  or  early  Jewish  para- 
phrase, you  find  many  of  these  inscriptions  different, 
not  only  from  the  original,  but  from  the  almost  con- 
temporaneous translation  into  the  Greek.  In  a  word, 
their  varying  form,  in  all  the  early  versions,  evinces 
that  they  were  regarded  as  no  part  of  the  inspired  text. 

That  any  modern  scholars  should  have  claimed  for 


I04     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

them  more  than  editorial  value  is  simply  one  of  the 
unaccountable  whims  of  scholarship.  It  has  never 
occurred  to  any  Christian  scholar  to  lay  any  stress  or 
make  any  claim  for  the  inscriptions  or  subscriptions  of 
the  New  Testament  books,  which  a  priori  one  would 
imagine  of  more  value  than  those  of  the  Psalms. 

These  inscriptions  or  notes  added  by  the  editors  of 
our  collection  are  of  two  kinds  : 

(i.)  Giving  information  as  to  the  author  of  the 
Psalm  with  any  circumstances  accompanying  or 
occasioning  its  composition,  but  more  frequently,' 
merely  the  name  of  the  collection  from  which  it 
had  been  borrowed.  When  the  author  of  the  Psalm 
was  not  known,  or,  as  some  of  the  later  Psalms,  (as 
cviii.,  made  up  from  Ivii.  and  Ix.),  it  is  simply  a  cento 
from  older  poems  arranged  for  the  liturgical  worship, 
it  has  no  inscription. 

(2.)  Even  more  numerous  than  these  literary  notes 
are  the  musical  ones,  found,  not  only  in  the  inscrip- 
tions, but  in  the  body  of  the  text,  '^'9.  Selah,  for 
example.  These  give  us  the  tune  to  which  the  songs 
are  set,  the  instrument  upon  which  they  are  to  be 
performed,  with  various  minute  instructions  for  the 
proper  tone  and  time  to  the  Temple  choir  and  orches- 
tra. These  we  will  take  up  when  we  come  hereafter 
to  speak  of  the  musical  editing  of  the  Psalms. 

The  literary  notes  I  will  strive  to  make  clear  to 


INSCRIPTIONS  OF  THE  PSALMS.  I05 

you,  as  we  now  consider  the  growth  and  arrangement 
of  the  several  books,  through  whose  final  collection 
into  one  our  present  Psalter  is  made  up.  We  must 
bear  in  mind,  then,  that  these  inscriptions  are  no  more 
than  annotations  by  the  collectors,  and  our  idea  of 
their  authority  in  determining  beyond  dispute  the  au- 
thorship and  age  of  a  Psalm,  is  to  be  determined  by 
our  judgment  of  the  authority  inhering  in  these  col- 
lectors. One  school  insists  they  must  in  every  case  be 
regarded  as  of  last  resort;  another  that  they  have  no 
value,  but  are  merely  marginal  annotations  of  later 
readers  which  have  by  mistake  crept  into  the  text, 
and  so  should  have  no  influence  upon  our  indepen- 
dent opinion  gained  from  personal  study  and  analysis 
of  the  Psalm. 

The  wiser  view  is  that  they  give  us  the  earliest 
information  we  have  as  to  the  origin  and  authorship 
of  these  poems  and  are  therefore  of  priceless  histori- 
cal value;  that  we  should  regard  them  of  the  same 
authority  that  we  do  the  annotations  of  any  hymn 
collector  of  the  present  time,  who  has  in  his  hands 
the  best  original  material  and  has  evinced  himself 
skilful,  painstaking  and  trustworthy  in  its  use.  We 
accept  his  annotations  as  correct  in  all  cases  where 
there  are  not  convincing  internal  or  external  reasons 
which  force  us  to  believe  that  in  this  or  that  particular 
case  he  has  been  mistaken. 

5* 


I06     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Just  SO  the  literary  inscriptions  of  the  Psalms  are 
to  be  regarded  as  correct  and  trustworthy  guides  to 
the  authorship  of  the  poems,  save  in  the  case  of  some 
one  or  other  particular  Psalm,  where  there  are 
internal  reasons  either  of  literary  form  or  allusion 
to  events,  which  we  are  able  to  fix  from  contem- 
poraneous history,  compelling  us  to  believe  that  the 
editor  must  have  been  misinformed  or  mistaken. 
This  may  seem  a  long  discussion  of  a  small  matter, 
but  it  is  one  on  which  have  hinged  all  the  mani- 
fold opinions  which  have  prevailed  as  to  the 
Psalms. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  the  division  of  the 
Psalms  into  five  books.  These  were  not  collected 
simultaneously,  but  separately,  by  different  hands  and 
at  longer  or  shorter  intervals,  during  a  period  which 
has  been  variously  estimated,  but  probably  cannot 
exceed  two  centuries.  All  these  separate  collections, 
or  the  best  part  of  each,  were  then  finally  combined 
into  one  general  and  received  "  Hymn  Collection " 
for  the  Temple  service,  which  ever  thereafter  conti- 
nued to  be  the  one  in  common  use. 

We  shall  first  examine  the  collection  of  each  sepa- 
rate book,  and  then  their  union  into  one  larger  col- 
lection. 

*    Book  I.  includes  Psalms  ii.-xli.,  with  the   closing 
formula  xH.,  13.      Psalm  i.,  does  not  belong  to  this 


FIRST  BOOK  OF  THE  PSA L  TER.  \ Q  J 

book,  but  was  first  added  as  a  prologue  to  the  entire 
collection,  when  later  this  was  formed  from  these  five 
older  hymn  books.  We  saw  that  the  writer  of  the 
Acts  did  not  count  it  among  the  Psalms. 

This  book,  as  is  attested  both  by  its  position  and 
the  general  style  of  its  poetry,  is  the  oldest  of  the  five 
books.  It  was  probably  formed  immediately  upon  the 
reestablishment  of  the  worship  after  the  return  from 
the  Exile.  It  is  composed  of  forty  hymns,  which  are 
not,  however,  an  original  collection  of  the  editors, 
but  were  taken  by  them  entirely  from  the  earlier 
prae-exilic  book,  "The  Devotional  Songs  of  David," — 
perhaps  a  selection  from  its  more  familiar  melodies. 
That  it  was  thus  collected  is  indicated  by  the  note 
as  to  the  authorship,  "^'I'lJ/  "  to  David,"  found  before 
all  the  poems  save  three — ii.,  x.,  xxxiii. 

Psalm  x.,  as  we  have  seen,  was  at  a  late  date  sepa- 
rated from  Psalm  ix.,  through  the  carelessness  of  copy- 
ists, and  so  is,  in  reality,  part  of  the  preceding  Psalm. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  inscription  of 
Psalm  xxxiii,  has  fallen  out,  though  it  is  possible 
that  it  is  anonymous. 

Psalm  ii.  is  the  only  one  in  the  first  book  where  an 
inscription  clearly  seems  to  have  been  originally  lack- 
ing. This  Psalm  may  be  considered  either  as  an 
introductory  Psalm  to  this  single  book  as  Psalm  i.  is 
to  the  entire  collection,  or  as  a  favorite  melody  of  the 


I08     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

old  worship,  which  did  not  belong  to  the  Davidic 
collection,  and  whose  author  is  unknown.  By  whom 
and  when  it  was  written,  as  we  have  no  hint  from 
either  history  or  tradition,  we  are  obliged  to  decide 
upon  the  internal  evidence  of  style  and  situation. 

It  may  be  said  once  for  all  in  regard  to  the  thirty- 
four  "  widowed  or  bereaved  "  (°'?^'^')  i.  e.,  inscrip- 
tionless  Psalms,  that  the  only  grounds  for  any  decision 
as  to  the  authorship  are  of  necessity  internal.  The 
early  editors  gave  no  inscriptions  because  they  were 
not  clear  as  to  them.  The  inscriptions  found  with 
them  in  the  early  versions  vary  so  greatly  among 
themselves,  that  they  but  further  confirm  us  in  the 
belief  that  there  was  no  sure  tradition  in  regard  to 
them  in  the  early  time. 

When  we  examine  Psalm  ii.,  it  appears  that  it  can- 
not have  been  written  by  any  King  of  Israel,  such  as 
David  was,  for  it  is  addressed  to  some  King  of  Israel 
by  one  of  his  people.  The  situation  is  besides  ap- 
parently non-Davidic.  Delitzsch,  perhaps  the  most 
conservative  expositor  of  the  Psalms,  who  can  lay 
any  claim  to  oriental  scholarship,  refers  it  to  the 
Assyrian  (the  heathen  of  the  first  verse)  invasions 
during  the  reign  of  Hezekiah.  Were  we  to  read  the 
Psalm  together,  as  I  had  at  one  time  proposed,  I  am 
convinced  you  would  find  that  this  is  the  position 
in  Jewish   history  which   most   strikingly   illustrates 


THE  SECOND  PSALM.  IO9 

^^  it.  But  this  is  the  earhest  period  which  can,  with 
reasonable  fairness,  be  assumed  for  it.  The  opinions 
as  to  its  date  among  scholars  have  ranged  through 
the  next  seven  centuries.  It  has  been  referred  to  the 
inroads  of  the  Scythian  hordes — to  the  Chaldean 
invasion,  which  ended  in  the  overthrow  of  the  Jewish 
state — to  the  dangers  which  environed  the  colony  of 
returned  Exiles,  while  rebuilding  their  city  and 
Temple — to  the  vexatious  oppressions  of  the  Persian 
General  Bageses — to  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  by 
Ptolemy  Lagi — to  the  miseries  of  the  people  during 
the  dynastic  strife  between  the  Ptolemies  and  the  Se- 
leucidae — ^to  the  dangers  threatened  from  the  Sama- 
ritans, under  the  High  Priest  Onias — to  the  persecu- 
tions of  Antiochus  Epiphanes. 


LECTURE    IV. 


We  proceed  to-day  with  our  lectures  on  the 
Psalms  from  the  point  at  which  we  were  obliged  to 
leave  off  with  the  closing  of  the  last  hour. 

I  then  endeavored  to  make  clear  to  you  that  the 
orig'inal  name  of  our  Psalm  collection  was  Praise 
Book  or  Hymn  Book,  so  called  because  it  was  a  col- 
lection of  religious  songs  made  for  the  worship  of  the 
Temple,  and  that  our  English  names  Psalms  and 
Psalter  came  to  us  from  the  early  Latin  translations 
of  the  Septuagint,  in  a  sense  quite  different  from  that 
in  which  they  were  used  in  the  Greek. 

Taking  up  the  arrangement  of  the  Psalter,  I 
showed  you  the  five  books  into  which  it  was  divided, 
and,  after  discussing  at  some  length  the  question  of 
the  inscriptions,  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  neither 
of  the  extreme  views  in  regard  to  them  was,  on  lite- 
rary ground,  tenable — that  their  origin  was  demon- 
strably editorial  and  chiefly  of  historical  value. 
no 


THEORIES  OF  MACCABEAN  AUTHORSHIP.     Ill 

We  then  began  our  survey  of  the  separate  Psalms, 
and  had  proceeded  no  farther  than  the  Second  Psahn. 
As  the  last  word  in  closing,  I  mentioned  that 
not  a  few  scholars  had  referred  its  composition  to  the 
reign  of  Alexander  Jannaeus,  b.  c.  105-79,  ^  period 
which,  despite  the  ever  recurring  internal  disorder 
and  foreign  invasion,  was  one  of  literary  activity,  and 
from  which  we  have  preserved  to  us  the  Apocryphal 
books  of  Judith  and  Tobit. 

This  last  view  was  on  the  point  of  leading  me  to 
call  your  attention  to  an  interesting  question  in  the 
critical  study  of  the  Psalms,  still  under  discussion, 
and  yet  very  far  from  any  satisfactory  settlement, 
which  we  will  now  take  up. 

It  is  a  view  which  seems  to  have  forced  itself  upon 
many  scholars,  even  as  long  ago  as  Esrom  Rudinger, 
(who  was  professor  for  a  time  in  Wittenberg,  a  col- 
league there  of  Melancthon,  and  who  died  in  1591,) 
that  the  historical  situation  and  allusions  in  some  of 
the  Psalms  can  only  be  explained  by  their  authorship 
in  the  Maccabean  times.  Despite  Ewald's  assertion, 
made  with  his  customary  bitterness  and  haste,  that 
the  very  inclining  toward  this  view  argues  such 
blunting  of  the  moral  and  critical  judgment  as  to  ren- 
der one  incapable  of  justly  weighing  the  evidence  at 
issue,  the  great  majority  of  Shemitic  scholars  who 
have  been  capable  of  weighing  the  evidence,  do,  at 


I  12      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

the  present   day,  in  one   form  or  another,  hold  this 
view. 

Justus  Olshausen,  formerly  Professor  in  Kiel,  and 
now  Chief  Secretary  of  the  Prussian  Ministry  of  Edu- 
cation, in  his  Commentary  on  the  Psalms,  which  for 
textual  and  grammatical  study  is,  beyond  dispute,  the 
most  valuable  we  have,  takes  the  ground  which  to 
most  of  you  will  doubtless  be  startling,  that  the  old 
songs  of  the  Temple  worship  were  all  displaced  in  the 
Maccabean  times  by  a  new  collection  of  religious  and 
patriotic  songs,  which  had  sprung  from  the  inspiration 
of  that  period  of  national  and  intellectual  revival — 
that,  at  the  utmost,  not  more  than  half  a  dozen 
Psalms,  ii.,  xx.,  xxi.,  xxviii.,  Ixi.,  Ixiii.,  which  contain 
too  clear  allusions  to  a  Jewish  kingdom  to  be  ex- 
plained away,  can  possibly  have  come  from  prae-exilic 
times.  It  is  this  Maccabean  collection,  he  endeavors 
to  prove,  on  many  grounds  that  seem  to  him  of  great 
weight,  which  we  have  in  our  Book  of  Psalms.  I  do 
not  call  your  attention  to  this  view  for  the  sake  of  its 
novelty.  Were  it  the  vagary  of  an  erratic  scholar,  I 
should  not  have  mentioned  it,  but  as  the  carefully 
elaborated  theory  of  a  master  in  the  front  rank  of  his 
profession,  in  which  the  study  and  reflection  of  years 
have  only  confirmed  him,  it  demands  our  considera- 
tion. With  the  sharpness  of  definition,  which  Olshau- 
sen gives  to  his  theory,  there  are  probably  few  who 
hold  it. 


ANTIOCHUS  EPIPHANES.  I  I  3 

In  the  modified  form,  that  the  last  three  books  of 
the  Psalter  are  Maccabean  in  origin,  it  is  held  by  a 
considerable  number,  and  thence  through  all  grades 
of  belief  or  disbelief,  until  we  reach  the  four  Psalms 
xliv.,  Ixxiv.,  Ixxix.,  Ixxxiii.,  which,  fairness  compels  me 
to  say,  are  regarded  as  undoubtedly  of  Maccabean 
origin  by  many  of  the  best  authorities  of  the  present 
day.  I  think  myself  that  the  authorities  may  be  in 
error  here,  but  before  I  can  tell  you  why,  we  must  see 
clearly  just  what  the  Maccabean  era  is..  The  discus- 
sion of  it  will  be  of  further  value  in  fixing  for  us  the 
period  from  which  came  the  latest  songs  of  our  col- 
lection. 

Antiochus  the  Fourth,  known  in  history  by  the 
name  Epiphanes,  the  Illustrious,  given  him  by  his 
flatterers,  was  the  son  of  Antiochus  the  Great.  His 
fame  has  come  down  to  us  through  the  Jewish  Apo- 
crypha as  a  bloody  and  ferocious  tyrant;  through 
Diodorus  and  the  Greek  historians  as  an  eccentric 
voluptuary.  And  yet  it  seems  to  me  that  neither  the 
one  or  the  other  fairly  gauges  the  character  of 
Epiphanes— that  he  is  one  of  the  little  understood 
and  misjudged  characters  of  history.  Like  Diocletian 
he  was  a  man  by  natural  bent  liberal  in  mind  and 
kindly  in  disposition,  whom  political  circumstances 
beyond  his  control  forced  to  assume  unwillingly  the 
role   of  a   persecutor.     Educated  in  Rome,  he  was 


114     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

through  an  intrigue  which  ended  in  the  poisoning  of 
his  brother,  brought  to  the  throne  of  Syria  while  still 
a  young  man.     He  inherited  from   his   house   their 
military  traditions  and  boundless  ambition.       Con- 
scious of  his  ability  to  play  a  wider  part  than  that  of 
mere  viceroy  of  Syria,  and  holding  in  his  hand  suf- 
ficient force  to  at  last  crush  out  his  hated  rivals,  the 
Ptolemies,  his  hopes  were  dashed,  and  his  plans,  just 
ready  to  mature,  were  blighted  by  the  interference  of 
the  Romans,  who  reduced  him  to  a  vassal.     His  dis- 
appointed ambition  beat  its  wings  against  the  narrow 
bounds  of  his  own  territory;  his  failure  embittered 
him  and  prepared  him  to  wreak  on  the  Jews,  when 
later  they  opposed  him,  the  indignities  to  which  he 
himself  had  been  exposed.     He  was  beside  a  vision- 
ary.     When  all  hope  of  increasing  his  territory  by 
arms  had  passed  away,  he  endeavored  to  bring  to- 
gether  the   diverse  nationalities  and  religions  under 
his   sway,   through    some   one    cultus  which   might 
become  a  common  bond  of  union  to  all  his  people. 
There  seems  to  have  been  in  his  mind  some  dim  pre- 
figurement  of  that  coincident  church  and  state  which 
became  the  ideal  of  the  mediaeval   ages.      Least  of  all 
did  he  expect  resistance  from  the  Jews.     He  was  sur- 
rounded by  Jewish  parasites  who  assured  him  their 
people  were  eager  for  a  change,  and  he  could  gain 
small    reverence   for  a  religion,   the   candidates   for 


ANTIOCHUS  EPIPHANES. 


115 


whose  most  sacred  office — the  High  Priesthood — 
bargained  and  wrangled  at  his  doors  over  the  price  of 
their  investiture.  There  were  very  many  among  the 
Jews  themselves,  who  looked  upon  his  first  innova- 
tions with  undisguised  sympathy  and  favor — their 
cultured  and  monied  class  had  long  since  been 
Hellenized.  He  built  a  gymnasium  in  Jerusalem 
which  became  a  centre  for  the  Greek  learning  and  the 
Greek  games.  On  his  first  return  from  Egypt  he 
entered  an  illuminated  city  amid  the  acclamations  of 
the  inhabitants.  He  should  not  bear  the  blame  of 
misinterpreting  a  popular  sentiment  which  seemed  so 
favorable  to  him.  It  was  but  the  natural  outgrowth 
of  his  theocratic  policy  for  him  to  set  up  in  the  Temple 
at  Jerusalem  some  symbol  of  the  national  cultus  on 
the  Altar  of  Jehovah,  who,  education  taught  him, 
was  a  mere  local  divinity  though  one  to  whom  his 
belief  and  disposition  led  him  to  show  tolerance  and 
respect.  The  placing  of  the  Eagle  of  Zeus  as  a 
tutelar  divinity  on  the  Altar  of  Burnt  Offering  was 
accompanied  by  riots  in  Jerusalem,  which  the  Hellen- 
ized Jews  of  his  Court  assured  him  were  the  results  of 
political  sedition.  He  sends  an  army  to  enforce 
order,  which  is  met  by  open  defiance.  In  a  moment 
of  despairing  passion  at  seeing  what  were  his  fondest 
dreams  for  the  union  and  well-being  of  his  people 
miscarry,  he  gives  orders  to  crush  out  with  fire  and 


1 1 6     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

sword,  all  opposition  to  his  commands.  Once  more 
he  is  advised  by  the  apostate  Jews  of  his  court  that 
the  only  way  to  crush  the  sedition  is  by  crushing  the 
distinctive  religion  which  was  its  rallying  point,  so  he 
committed  the  folly  of  his  life  by  inhibiting,  under 
pain  of  death,  the  worship  and  customs  they  held 
most  sacred.  He  matched  his  armies  against  the 
moral  and  religious  force  of  the  Jews,  and  to  such  a 
conflict,  as  history  has  often  shown,  there  could  be 
but  one  result.  Justice  to  his  memory  should  compel 
even  his  enemies  to  admit  that  he  himself  did  not 
take  part  in  the  persecution  ;  he  left  it  to  his  generals 
and  to  renegades,  who  in  all  ages  have  been  the  most 
willing  instruments  for  persecuting  the  faith  they  once 
professed.  Starting  on  an  expedition  to  Persia  to 
replenish  his  impoverished  exchequer,  he  fails  in 
this  too,  and  dies  on  his  homeward  way,  February, 
164,  B.  c,  a  broken  and  disappointed  man,  all  whose 
schemes  for  the  aggrandizement  of  his  state  and 
welfare  of  his  subjects  have  been  misunderstood  and 
have  failed.  He  can  only  leave  to  his  nine  years 
old  son  a  heritage  of  disorder,  war  and  speedy 
murder. 

I  have  thus  sketched  to  you  the  character  of  Epi- 
phanes,  because  I  conceive  that  history  has  done  him 
injustice.  He  was  not  a  great  man  even  as  the  world 
estimates  greatness.      With  the  ambition  of  an  Alex- 


THE  MACCABEAN  ERA.  \\<j 

ander,  and  the  theocratic  ideal  of  a  Leo,  he  was 
confined  to  a  narrow  stage  where  his  every  plan  was 
thwarted.  He  is  chiefly  known  to  the  after  time  by 
his  persecution  of  the  Jews,  which  resulted  in  their 
revolt,  and  ushered  jn  a  period  of  their  history  of 
which  they  may  justly  be  proud, — the  Maccabean 
Era. 

Had  Epiphanes  confined  himself  to  his  first  Greek 
innovations,  the  Hellenizing  element  of  the  Jewish 
people  would  probably  have  been  strong  enough  to 
hold  the  Puritan  party  in  check.  It  was  not  until, 
when  maddened  by  the  first  show  of  resistance  he 
strove  to  crush  out  the  religion  of  Israel,  that  all  par- 
ties became  united  into  one.  The  blood  of  the  first 
martyrs  cemented  together  all  elements  of  the  people 
into  a  common  resistance.  A  priest  in  an  obscure 
village  slays  an  officer  of  the  royal  dragonnade,  flies 
to  the  desert  with  his  sons,  and  becomes  there  the 
nucleus  of  a  religious  and  military  awakening  of  the 
Jewish  people  without  parallel  in  their  previous  or 
subsequent  history.  Driven  asunder  again  and  again 
by  the  royal  troops,  it  is  only  to  rally  in  gathering 
force.  * 

It  was  a  conflict,  not  for  aggrandizement,  not  even 
for  national  existence,  for  all  hope  of  either  had  long 
ago  faded  away ;  it  was  a  struggle  for  the  toleration 
of  their  religion  and  the  right   to   worship   Jehovah. 


I  l8     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Rarely  have  a  people  fought  with  such  noble  devotion 
for  their  faith,  even  when  their  arms  have  been  steeled 
by  this  holiest  passion  of  which  men  are  capable. 
Under  the  lead  of  Judas  the  Maccabi — the  Hammerer, 
i.  e.,  the  one  through  whom  God  beats  down  his  ene- 
mies, they  defeat,  after  varying  fortunes,  the  Syrian 
forces  who  more  than  thrice  outnumber  them,  restore 
the  worship  of  Jehovah  to  His  Temple,  and  compel  a 
religious  toleration. 

The  furnace  of  persecution  through  which  they  had 
passed,  had  purified  the  people  from  its  worthless  ele- 
ments, and  with  the  restoration  of  their  worship, 
came  a  revival  of  religious  devotion  such  as  they  had 
never  known  before.  Of  their  political  and  military 
success,  it  is  not  in  place  to  speak  here,  but  it  was 
evanescent.  Within  a  few  years  it  was  marred  by  an 
intolerance  and  corruption  which  confirm  clearly  the 
lesson  of  all  history,  that  no  hands  are  so  unfit  to 
hold  the  sceptre  of  government  as  those  of  a  priest. 

The  religious  reformation  and  revival  were  alone 
of  enduring  influence,  and  cast  the  Jewish  character 
into  a  mould,  which  it  has  since  then,  to  a  large  de- 
gree, maintained.  In  modern  history  we  have  no 
period  parallel  to  it.  In  some  small  degree  we  may 
compare  it  with  the  resistance  of  the  Scotch  Kirk 
to  the  Anglican  Prelacy,  or  the  struggles  of  the  Wal- 
densians  against  the  interdict  of  Pope  Lucius  III. 


THE  OKIES  OF  MA  CCABEAN  A  UTHORSHIF.      i  j  g 

It  is  periods  of  persecution  such  as  this  which 
always  produce  the  most  tender  and  delicate  religious 
poetry  among  every  people.  An  examination  of  our 
choicest  hymns  will  show  this  to  the  satisfaction  of 
any  of  you.  Now,  say  the  scholars  who  hold  the 
theory  of  Maccabean  Psalms,  it  would  be  a  fact  no 
less  than  remarkable  if  a  religious  revolution,  so  far- 
reaching  in  its  influence,  had  left  no  trace  of  itself  in 
the  religious  songs  of  the  Temple  worship. 

A  priori,  there  can  be  no  objection  to  this  theory, 
either  first,  on  religious  grounds,  for  no  period  of 
Jewish  history  shows  so  pure  a  religious  fervor  as 
does  this.  If  Jehovah  ever  dwelt  among  His  people, 
and  inspired  His  servants,  it  was  at  this  time,  when 
they  were,  with  small  hope  of  success,  exposing  them- 
selves to  the  death  for  His  worship.  There  are  few  of 
the  prophets  or  saints  of  the  older  time  who  can  com- 
pare in  religious  devotion  or  moral  force  with  the  men 
of  this  age.  The  writer  of  the  Hebrews  sees  this  well 
in  borrowing  from  this  period  many  of  his  figures  of 
the  men  of  faith  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy. 

Nor  second,  can  there  be  any  objection  on  canoni- 
cal ground.  Despite  all  positive  assertions  pro 
and  contra,  we  simply  do  not  know  when  the  canon 
was  closed,  that  is,  when  the  books  came  into  their 
present  shape,  nor  can  I  see  any  interest  save  a  pure- 
ly historical  one  in  the  inquiry.     We  only  know  that 


120     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

at  a  much  later  time  men  were  still  discussing  the 
canonicity  of  several  or  all  the  writings.  It  is  the 
decision  of  this  question,  as  to  whether  these  are  Mac- 
cabean  Psalms  or  not,  which  forms  one  of  the  chief 
factors  in  our  subsequent  decision  as  to  the  time 
when  the  canon  was  closed.  Of  course  you  well 
know  that  neither  in  mathematics  or  literature  can 
one  unknown  quantity  be  used  to  solve  another. 
But  even  granting  the  canon  was  closed,  there  can  be 
no  possible  objection  to  the  view  of  many  of  the  more 
conservative  scholars  that  several  hymns  of  this 
period,  which  had  grown  sacred  to  the  people,  were 
added  either  on  the  margin,  or  at  the  end  of  the 
rolls  for  use  in  worship,  and  finally,  by  the  hand  of 
later  copyists  came  into  the  body  of  the  text.  The 
view  of  the  New  Testament  text,  which  guides  the 
scholars  now  preparing  our  new  English  version,  is 
that  there  may  be,  and  are,  additions  (for  instance, 
the  narrative  in  John  vii.  53-viii.  11,)  which  have 
come  into  the  text  at  a  later  time.  I  am  unable  to 
see  why  the  same  course  of  criticism  is  not  applica- 
ble to  the   Hebrew  text. 

Nor  lastly,  is  the  linguistic  ground,  which  has  been 
urged  by  many,  of  any  weight.  Doubtless  the  He- 
brew had,  in  a  large  measure,  ceased  to  be  a  spoken 
language  ere  the  period  of  the  Maccabees,  but  it  was 
still    the   language   of   the   Temple   service   and   of 


THEORIES  OF  MA CCABEAN  A  UTHORSHIP.      \  2  I 

scholars.  As  little  as  does  the  beautiful  Latinity  of 
the  hymns  of  Thomas  of  Celano  (1255)  or  Bernard  of 
Clairvaux  (i  153)  prove  that  the  Latin  must,  in  their 
time,  have  been  a  spoken  dialect,  does  the  purity  of 
the  Hebrew  in  any  Psalm  prove,  beyond  necessity 
of  further  discussion,  that  it  could  not  have  been  writ- 
ten in  the  Maccabean  era. 

We  have,  then,  you  perceive,  no  inherent  impossi- 
bility of  such  Psalms;  let  us  now  inquire  what  the 
real  facts  in  the  case  are. 

And  first,  the  theory  of  Olshausen  is,  without 
hesitation,  on  every  literary  and  linguistic  ground  to 
be  rejected.  Olshausen  belongs  to  a  school  of  criti- 
cism to  whom  tradition  is  of  no  value,  and  who  use 
history  only  as  a  means  of  confirming  their  own  sub- 
jective judgments  as  to  how  things  ought  to  have 
been.  In  Biblical  criticism  this  school  has  received, 
by  way  of  disapprobation  I  suppose,  the  name  German, 
but  we  must  not  give  our  neighbors  unjustly  a  bad 
name.  It  had  its  origin  in  England  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  and  not  until  a  much  later  day  does  it 
pass  through  France  to  Germany.  Its  hasty  judg- 
ments, and  unproven  theories,  have  been  the  reason 
why,  in  this  country,  the  legitimate  critical  study  of 
the  Bible,  even  by  those  who  cherish  its  accredited 
and  ascertained  teachings  as  a  guide  of  life,  and  who 
have  no  end  in  view  save  by  their  studies  the  better 
6 


122      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

to  understand  it,  has  fallen  into  such  disrepute. 
Olshausen's  theory  involves  hterary  difficulties  twice 
as  insuperable  as  those  from  which  he  endeavors  to 
escape.  It  gives  the  lie  to  all  the  traditions  which  the 
editors  of  the  Psalm  collection  have  embodied  in  the 
inscriptions,  and  necessitates  a  reshaping  of  all  Jewish 
history,  which  of  course  is  no  difficulty  to  one  who 
believes  that  there  was  no  Jewish  literature  prior  to  the 
eighth  century.  There  is  no  limit  to  the  credulity  of 
those  who  assume  that  there  is  no  truth  in  history. 

On  literary  ground  it  is  inconceivable  how  the  old 
religious  melodies  should  have  so  irrecoverably 
perished.  A  religious  revival  such  as  the  Maccabean 
would  only  fix  them  the  firmer  in  the  affections  of  the 
people. 

If  they  are  Maccabean  in  origin,  how  is  it  that  this 
same  collection  is  found  in  the  translation  of  the  Sep- 
tuagint,  contemporaneous  at  the  latest  with  the 
Maccabean  period,  and  made  by  Greek  scholars  who 
if  not  hostile,  were  at  least  indifferent  to  the  Macca- 
bean struggle,  and  would  have  taken  as  the  old  Tem- 
ple melodies  no  collection  of  Maccabean  hymns,  and 
whose  ascriptions  of  the  Psalms,  in  the  titles,  to  the 
early  prophets,  show  that  they  were  not  consciously 
translating  any  contemporaneous  songs.  ? 

In  fact  so  strong  is  the  argument  here  that  if  pressed 
home  on  all   its  lines,  it  would  even  show  that  the 


THEORIES  OF  MACCABEAN  AUTHORSHIP.     \  23 

Greek  version  was  made  prior  to  the  Maccabean 
period.  Of  course,  if  this  be  so,  it  is  all  over  with 
the  Maccabean  Psalm  collection. 

How  is  it  that,  not  fifty  years  after  this  Maccabean 
struggle,  when  its  memories  were  still  fresh  in  men's 
minds,  this  collection  is  constantly  spoken  of  as 
by  David  and  the  men  of  the  older  time,  without  any 
trace  of  reference  to  the  persecution  whose  scars  had 
not  yet  been  healed  ? 

Lastly,  if  we  accept  as  the  date  of  Chronicles  the 
pontificate  of  the  High  Priest  Jochanan,  toward  the 
close  of  the  Persian  period,  b.  c.  405-359,  where  it  is 
most  generally  referred,  we  shall  have  convincing 
internal  proof  against  the  Maccabean  origin  of  our 
book,  for  in  i  Chronicles  xvi.  36  we  find  a  cento 
made  up  of  fragments  from  Psalms  xcvi.,  cv.,  cvi.,  with 
certain  liturgical  notes  which  could  not  very  well 
have  been  borrowed  until  the  collection  had  assumed 
its  present  shape. 

In  a  word,  could  we  believe  the  Psalm  Book  to  be 
a  collection  of  Maccabean  poems,  we  should  have  to 
resign  all  confidence  in  history  which  was  not  coinci- 
dent with  our  own  personal  experience.  Thus  you 
see  how  a  wise  investigation  of  Scripture  in  many 
cases  but  confirms  what  on  other  grounds  we  had 
been  led  to  have  faith  in.  There  is  and  can  be  no 
conflict  between  scholarship  and  anything  which  is 


124 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


really  divine  in  Scripture.  The  province  of  lite- 
rary scholarship  is  to  investigate  the  literary  forms 
which  Scripture  has  assumed.  It  must,  by  its  very 
terms,  treat  the  Hebrew  literature  as  a  part  of  the 
world's  literature.  Nothing  of  permanent  value  can 
be  touched  or  destroyed  by  it.  We  thus  gain  for 
the  Hebrew  Scripture  rational  value  for  all  time, 
which  is  infinitely  more  precious  than  any  which  is 
the  result  of  unthinking  preconception. 

The  arguments  we  have  adduced  above  will  be 
valid  as  against  all  the  more  radical  theories  of  the 
Maccabean  Psalms  which  are  now  so  commonly  held. 
It  is  not  so  clear  that  there  are  not  three  or  four 
Psalms  which  have  in  some  way  come  into  our  col- 
lection from  this  Maccabean  revival. 

The  Psalms  which  seemingly  bear  clearest  traces  of 
this  revival  are  Psalms  Ixxiv.  and  Ixxix.  I  can  not 
pause  now  to  go  into  a  minute  exegesis  of  them,  but, 
to  a  candid  mind,  there  are  many  allusions  apparently 
only  explicable  from  the  situation  of  a  people  perse- 
cuted for  their  religion  by  heathen  enemies,  with  their 
Temple  the  seat  of  a  foreign  cultus,  and  their  syna- 
gogues all  burned,  such  as  we  know  existed  in  the 
Maccabean  time,  and  such  as  we  do  not  know  existed 
at  any  other.  By  some  they  have  been  referred  very 
unfitly  to  the  period  of  the  Chaldean  invasion,  but 
this   had  immediately  no  religious  end  in  view,  nor 


THEORIES  OF  MACCABEAN  AUTHORSHIP.     125 

was,  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  a  persecution ;  it  was 
a  piece  of  political  and  military  strategy  to  break  the 
defensive  power  of  Egypt  by  removing  from  its 
boundary  a  people  who  were  naturally  friendly  to  it. 
I  am  inclined  myself  to  leave  the  question  of  these 
two  Psalms,  as  John  Calvin  did,  an  open  one  and  for 
the  present  undecided.  There  is  a  possibility  that 
these  two  poems  are  from  the  Maccabean  period ; 
if  so,  they  came  into  the  collection  at  a  later  time 
from  the  margin  or  the  appendix  of  the  roll.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Greek  translation,  which  contains 
these  same  Psalms,  creates  so  strong  a  case  against 
their  Maccabean  origin  that  we  are  obliged  to  leave 
the  decision  open. 

I  have  dwelt  thus  long  upon  this  question  because 
it  is  one  of  the  most  widely  discussed  and  important 
ones  in  Hebrew  literature.  If  you  ever  take  up  the 
minute  study  of  the  Bible,  you  will  find  three  main 
and  essential  points  of  controversy  between  scholars 
in  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures — the  origin  of  the 
Mosaic  literature — the  authorship  of  the  last  twenty- 
seven  chapters  of  Isaiah, — and  this  question  as  to  the 
Maccabean  Psalms.  We  have  endeavored  to  show  in 
regard  to  it,  that,  while  there  is  no  a  priori  ground 
against  such  Psalms,  and  that  the  Maccabean  era  was 
one  in  every  way  fitted  to  inspire  the  highest  reli- 
gious poetry,  there   are   overwhelming  literary  and 


126     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

historical  grounds  for  rejecting  any  such  origin  either 
of  the  collection  or  any  considerable  part  of  it-  it 
remaining  just  possible  that  one  or  two  Psalms  from 
this  period,  may, through  their  constant  use  in  the 
worship,  have  come  into  the  Temple  Hymn  Book  in 
the  later  form  in  which  we  have  it  preserved  to  us. 

Thus  we  can  fix  the  hither  terminus  of  our  Psalm- 
collection,  and  we  reject  without  further  question  the 
Maccabean  origin  of  Psalm  ii.,  and  the  other  Psalms 
which  is  being  pushed  with  such  vigor  by  the  newest 
and  most  learned  school  of  Hebrew  philology.  The 
collection  existed  substantially  in  its  present  shape 
before' the  translation  of  the  Septuagint. 

We  said  that  the  Psalms  of  this  first  book,  with  the 
exceptions  I  have  mentioned  (ii.,  x.,  xxxiii.,)  all  belong 
to  the  older  Davidic  collection;  the  further  question 
now  arises  as  to  how- many  of  them  may  with  justice 
be  referred  to  David  himself  That  the  inscription 
''of  David"  in  the  English  does  not  necessarily  imply 
personal  Davidic  authorship,  but  merely  that  the 
Psalm  is  taken  from  the  older  Davidic  collection,  I 
have  already  endeavored  to  make  clear,  and  will  not 
now  revert  to  it.  That  a  book  in  the  orient  is 
named  after  the  one  whose  works  stand  first,  or 
form  the  most  considerable  part  in  it,  I  might  have 
further  illustrated  from  the  Ethiopic  Psalter,  which  is 
simply  known  as  "  David,"  and  the  similar  usage  of 


DA  VI Die  A  UTHORSHIP.  I  2  7 

the  old  oriental  Greek  church ;  we  will  read  "  David, 
etc." ^ 

There  are  two  diametrically  opposite  views  as  to  the 
Davidic  Psalms,  both  of  which  I  presume  we  shall, 
without  discussion,  be  prepared  to  pronounce  unten- 
able. 

I.  That  David  wrote  all  the  Psalms. 

We  are  told  in  the  Talmud  that  David  either  wrote 
in  person  all  the  Psalms,  or,  when  other  names  are 
mentioned,  they  are  simply  those  through  whom  his 
inspirations  have  assumed  the  form  in  which  we  now 
have  them.  A  similar  view  was  held  by  many  of  the 
Church  Fathers,  as  Augustine  and  Chrysostom,  while 
we  find  the  same  in  Beda,  earliest  and  far  from  least 
of  our  English  scholars.  At  the  present  day,  it 
is  held  by  some  few  scholars  of  the  Latin  Church. 
In  the  Protestant  Church  it  has  been  alone  defended 
with  more  heat  than  wisdom  by  a  certain  Dr.  Lud- 
wig  Clauss  of  Berlin,  in  a  book  published  in  1831. 
No  one  of  course  who  accepts  even  the  editorial 
accuracy  of  the  inscriptions  ascribing  the  Psalms  to 
so  many  other  authoVs,  can  for  a  moment  hold  such 
a  view, 

II.  Equally  untenable  with  this  is  the  view  that 
David  wrote  none  of  the  Psalms. 

1  That  is,  the  title  of  the  Book  of  Psalms  :  "  David  "  is  to  be  under- 
Stood  as  meaning :  "  David  and  other  writers."     (T.) 


128     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

As  an  almost  necessary  corollary  to  his  view  of  the 
Maccabean  Psalms,  Olshausen  asserts  that  there  are 
clearly  no  Psalms  in  our  collection  so  old  as  the  Da- 
vidic-Solomonic  era ;  while  Caesar  Lengerke,  in  his 
Psalm  Commentary,  a  book  of  no  value  save  as  a 
hterary  curiosum  and  unworthy  of  a  scholar  who 
could  write  as  ably  as  he  did  of  Jewish  antiquities, 
maintains  that  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  David 
was  a  religious  poet  at  all. 

Probably  there  is  no  one  here  to  whom  it  would  be 
necessary  to  prove  the  Davidic  authorship  of  a  large 
number  of  the  Psalms.  Fortunately  we  are  able  to  do 
so  on  purely  literary  ground,  which  of  course  is  alone 
recognized  by  those  who  deny  all  Davidic  authorship. 

Kuenen  and  the  Dutch  scholars  who  are  endeavor- 
ing to  restore  the  history  of  Israel,  tell  us  that  the  ap- 
pearance of  Amos  was  the  dawn  of  the  religious  con- 
sciousness of  the  nation,  and  his  prophecy  the  earliest 
literature  which  has  come  down  to  us.  But  here,  as 
elsewhere,  the  famous  eighth  century  theory  is  prov- 
ing too  much  for  those  who  have  elaborated  it  with 
such  pains,  and  it  is  only  fair  to  add,  with  such  skill. 
Granted  the  sure  authenticity  and  trustworthiness  of 
the  eighth  century  prophets,  we  have  all  the  ground 
which  any  scholar  needs  for  proving  that  there  must 
have  been  a  precedent  literary  period.  Quite  to  the 
point  here  we  find  David  mentioned  in  Amos  vi.  5, 


I 

DA  VIDIC  A  VTHORSHIP.  \  29 

an  authority  which  Kuenen,  by  the  very  terms  of  his 
theory,  can  not  deny, as  having  been  a  famous  musi- 
cian. We  can,  moreover,  prove  that  he  was  no  mean 
poet,  even  leaving  the  Psalms  out  of  consideration, 
and  without  regard  to  the  Chronicles,  which  the 
newer  school  refuse  to  consider  an  authority.  There 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Greek  elegiacs,  a  song  with 
sentiment  so  exquisite,  or  feeling  so  tender,  as  his 
elegy  on  Saul  and  Jonathan,  a  poem  whose  choicest 
beauty  has  evaporated  in  our  English  translation.  In 
the  lament  over  Abner  we  have  a  beautiful  fragment 
from  a  longer  song,  and  in  II.  Samuel  xxiii.,  we  have 
preserved  still  another  poem  of  David's,  which  has  not 
been  included  in  the  Psalm  collection.  The  concep- 
tion of  him  by  the  Hebrew  historians  is  as  the  chief 
master  of  their  lyric  song ;  not  creator  of  it,  for  it  had 
existed  long  before  him — but  as  the  one  whose  poetry 
opens  the  golden  age  of  their  literature  with  a  perfec- 
tion of  form  which  made  it  the  model  for  all  the  later 
time.  If  there  be  anything  in  the  past  attested  by  the 
evidence  of  history  or  the  unanimity  of  tradition,  it  is 
that  David  was  a  poet. 

And  when  I  say  this  I  am  not  unaware  that  the 
newest  histories  of  Israel  characterize  David  as  an 
oriental  despot  unredeemed  by  any  virtue  or  any 
spark  of  genius ;  that  it  is  charged  by  scholars  of 
great  learning  that  he  was  a  freebooter  who  displaced 

6* 


130     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

his  rightful  sovereign,  and  that  the  annahsts  employed 
by  and  attached  to  his  dynasty  have  written  his 
history  at  the  expense  of  Saul,  who  was  really  the 
one  great  man  of  the  early  time.  I  further  know  that 
the  rising  school  of  Shemitic  mythology  whose  cen- 
tre is  at  the  Hungarian  University  of  Buda-Pesth, 
and  which  has  not  a  few  followers  in  England,  regard 
him  as  a  mythical  character,  whose  main  features  are 
borrowed  from  the  Sun-myth ;  for  example,  that  his 
fight  with  Goliath,  like  the  fable  of  our  Scandinavian 
ancestors,  where  Thor  throws  his  hammer  into 
Hrungnir's  forehead,  is  but  a  symbol  of  the  ray  of 
the  dawning  shooting  through  and  dispersing  the 
heavy  overhanging  mist  of  the  night,  and  so  on  to 
the  end  of  the  chapter.  But  this  is  not  serious 
history.  There  is  scarcely  any  character  in  the  olden 
time  painted  with  such  fidelity  of  detail,  such  mani- 
fest honesty  in  concealing  none  of  the  darker  lines,  as 
is  the  character  of  David  by  the  compilers  of  the 
books  of  Samuel.  If  we  know  any  figure  of  history 
we  know  his.  If  it  is  all  a  myth,  as  the  latest  school 
tells  us,  there  is  then  no  history  of  the  world  save  as 
it  commends  itself  to  our  own  subjective  judgments ; 
history  is  but  the  internal  panorama  of  our  mind  and 
no  longer  an  external  series  of  acts  and  phenomena. 
I  cannot  go  further  now  in  speaking  of  David's  per- 
sonality ;  the  few  scholars  who  deny  the  possibility  of 


DAVID IC  AUTHORSHIP, 


131 


Davidic  Psalms  do  so  on  ground  we  are  forced  to 
regard  as  untenable.  The  great  majority  of  scholars 
accept,  as  clearly  proven,  the  Davidic  authorship  of 
some  Psalms,  but  differ  very  widely  as  to  the  number. 

We  have  in  our  present  Psalm  Book  seventy-three 
Psalms,  which,  according  to  their  inscription,  have 
been  taken  from  the  older  Davidic  Collection:  the 
entire  First  Book,  thirty-seven  in  accurate  count; 
eighteen  in  the  Second  Book ;  only  one  in  the  Third 
Book,  and  two  in  the  Fourth  Book,  then  rising  again 
to  fifteen  in  the  Fifth  Book. 

Of  the  thirty-four  inscriptionless  and  anonymous 
Psalms,  there  is  no  ground  to  believe  that  any  came 
from  this  "  Davidic  Collection,"  and  there  is  no  one 
of  them  in  regard  to  which  we*  do*  not  have  convinc- 
ing reasons  for  saying  it  cannot  have  come  from  the 
Davidic  age.  Jerome  makes  a  mistake,  when,  in  his 
letter  to  his  brother  ascetic  Cyprian,  he  establishes  as 
the  canon  of  authorship,  "  that  all  Psalms  without  in- 
scriptions must  be  referred  to  the  last  author  named." 

It  is  neither  suitable  to  this  time  nor  place  to  dis- 
cuss the  various  views  of  inspiration ;  suffice  to  say  it 
has  not  freed  men  from  the  invariable  personal  equa- 
tions of  their  character  and  their  style.  Isaiah  writes 
the  purest  Hebrew ;  the  Chronicler  blunders  in  his 
grammar,  and  the  Ecclesiast  has  a  half  Aramaic  pa- 
tois; the  author  of  Job  soars  to  the  heights  of  poetry; 


132 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


the  writer  of  Ruth  has  a  prose  style  clear  as  crystal, 
while  Ezekiel  grows  involved  in  his  endless  figures, 
and  Esther  wearies  one  with  its  platitudes ;  Samuel 
and  Kings  are  set  together  with  some  regard  to  con- 
ciseness and  historical  sequence,  while  Genesis  ever 
anew  surprises  the  reader  with  the  artlessness  of  its 
compiler  in  his  use  of  his  material.  Such  being  the 
case,  the  sufficiency  of  the  canons  gained  from  the 
study  of  other  literatures  must  be  granted,  else  there 
can  be  no  study  of  the  Hebrew  writings  as  literature. 
Of  course  this  would  not  preclude  their  study  from 
other,  perhaps  more  valuable,  standpoints,  but  it 
would  raise  an  insuperable  barrier  against  any  such 
purely  literary  study  as  these  lectures  are  alone  en- 
gaged with. 

Taking  up  the  Psalms  of  the  Davidic  Book,  scho- 
lars have  been  accustomed,  first  of  all,  by  means  of 
the  dozen  or  so  poems  which,  from  internal  setting  or 
external  allusion,  have  a  consensus  in  their  favor  as  of 
Davidic  authorship,  to  fix  what  they  call  David's  style 
of  writing,  and  make  this  the  standard  for  judging 
the  other  poems  of  the  collection.  Now  style, 
though,  on  the  whole,  the  surest  purely  literary  test 
of  authorship,  is  not  a  complete  one,  especially  when 
dealing  with  ancient  literature.  I  doubt,  if  the  writings 
of  the  English  Poet-Laureate  should  have  the  good 
fortune  to  survive  two  thousand  years,  and  then  be 


DA  VIDIC  A  UTHORSHIP. 


133 


the  sole  remains  of  English  letters  from  the  Victorian 
period,  whether  any  one  will  be  inclined  to  refer  the 
"In  Memoriam  "  and  "The  Princess"  to  the  same 
author.  Perhaps  they  will  say  they  have  been  placed 
together  through  the  misapprehension  of  some  later 
editor,  while  the  "  Northern  farmer  "  will  doubtless 
be  rejected  as  spurious  by  all,  and  made  the  point  of 
many  an  argument  as  to  the  decay  of  English  speech. 
In  the  study  of  any  ancient  literature,  the  argument 
from  literary  style  can  only  be  used  with  the  greatest 
caution.  It  has  broken  down  in  the  literary  study  of 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  just  at  a  point  where  most  was 
expected  of  it — in  the  comparison  of  the  earlier  and 
later  chapters  of  Isaiah. 

In  studying  the  Psalms  of  this  Davidic  collection, 
scholars  too  often  have  used  the  argument  in  a  logical 
circle,  by  first  choosing  poems  which,  from  certain  pe- 
culiarities of  style,  approved  themselves  as  Davidic, 
and  then  making  them  a  norm  for  determining  all  the 
rest.  Style  has,  and  ever  will  have,  so  long  as  litera- 
ture is  studied,  great  value  when  employed  by  cautious 
hands.  There  is  essential  to  its  use  a  delicate  aesthetic 
perception  and  a  wide  knowledge  of  literature,  such 
as  are  combined  in  very  few.  It  furnishes,  when  one 
can  rightly  use  it,  complete  subjective  satisfaction  as 
to  the  age  and  authorship  of  a  literature,  but  is  not 
objectively  conclusive  unless  confirmed  by  the  further 


134     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

evidence  of  grammatical  form  and  historical  allusion. 
The  argument  from  grammatical  form  is  alone  of 
value  to  the  specialist  who  is  conversant  with  the 
niceties  of  the  language,  but  the  argument  from  his- 
torical allusion  appeals  to  every  one,  with  quite  as 
much  force  to  the  student  of  a  translation  as  to  the 
student  of  the  original.  For  example :  we  have  a 
very  celebrated  paraphrase  of  the  Pentateuch — the  Je- 
rusalem Targum — which  has  sometimes  been  referred 
to  a  period  prior  to  our  era.  When  scholars  came  to 
study  it  critically,  they  found  allusions  to  Muham- 
med,  to  the  rise  of  Islam,  and  even  to  the  capture  of 
Constantinople.  Surely  it  will  be  clear  to  the  dullest 
mind  that  the  literary  form  in  which  we  have  this 
work  must  be  subsequent  to  the  events  to  which  it 
alludes.  Or  again,  take  an  example  from  our  own 
English  literature :  you  all  well  know  that  there  are 
certain  plays  which  were  long  attributed  to  Sbaks- 
pere,  but  on  examination  it  .has  been  found  that  they 
contain  allusions  to  a  later  time.  Now  the  moment 
this  was  proven  on  sufficient  grounds,  the  Shaksperean 
authorship  was  given  up.  In  other  words,  in  all  liter- 
ary investigations,  an  unmistakable  and  clearly  proven 
allusion  to  some  well  known  event,  shows  the  piece  in 
question  to  be  contemporaneous  with  or  subsequent 
to  such  event.  When  to  the  argument  from  histori- 
cal allusion  we  add  that  of  grammatical  form,  and 


DA  VI Die  A  UTHORSHIP. 


135 


style,  we  have  a  chain  of  evidence  which  is  un- 
breakable. We  are  fully  justified  in  applying  the 
same  canons  in  any  critical  investigation  of  the  He- 
brew literature,  taking  care  however  to  exclude  the 
prophetic  writings,  which,  by  their  definition,  include 
such  an  element  of  introspective  and  prospective 
vision  as  to  place  them  beyond  measurement  by  the 
standard  of  "historical  allusion."  At  least,  I  speak 
for  myself  as  to  the  prophetic  writings.  I  know  it  is 
not  an  exception  which  would  be  allowed  by  very 
many,  who  see  no  more  in  the  prophetic  intuition 
than  an  acute  discernment  and  political  sagacity ;  but 
this  we  will  discuss  at  another  time.  There  can  be 
no  objection  to  applying  these  canons  in  the  study  of 
those  works  which  make  no  pretence  to  be  propheti- 
cal, so  least  of  all  to  the  study  of  the  Psalms. 

Let  us  apply  them  then  to  this  Davidic  Collection 
we  are  now  investigating. 

First,  we  have  the  argument  from  style,  and  this 
seems  to  show,  that  certain  of  these  poems  are  proba- 
bly not  of  Davidic  authorship — of  course  by  itself 
this  establishes  no  more  than  a  probability.  The 
Davidic  style  as  we  learn  it  from  undoubted  Davidic 
Psalms,  such  as  viii.,  xv.,  is  terse,  vigorous  and 
rapid.  When  we  come  to  a  Psalm  whose  style  is 
heavy,  whose  metre  is  halting,  and  whose  rhetoric  is 
turgid,  as  Psalm  Ixxxvi., — we  have  reason,  if  there  be 


136     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

no  external  convincing  grounds,  to  assume  that  it  must 
be  from  some  other  author.  David's  writings  attest 
him  as  a  man  of  original  mind  ;  his  poetry  is  easy  and 
limpid,  showing  no  trace  of  conscious  effort.  When 
we  come  to  Psalms  like  Ixxxvi.,  civ.,  cxliv.,  roughly 
pieced  together  from  many  different  sources  which 
we  can  trace,  elaborated  with  conscious  effort  and  yet 
with  so  artless  a  skill  that  the  joints  of  the  workman- 
ship can  even  now  be  discerned,  it  is  but  fair  to 
assume,  as  above,  that  it  must  be  from  some  other 
hand  than  the  master  one  of  David. 

Again,  David's  Psalms  show  a  unity  of  treatment 
and  consecution  of  thought;  when  therefore  we 
come  to  a  Psalm  where  there  is  a  sudden  break  in 
the  style  and  which  is  made  up  of  two  parts  radically 
different  in  treatment,  as  Psalm  xxiv.,  it  is  not  unwar- 
ranted to  say  that  here  are  either  two  Psalms  of 
David  which  have  been  later  united,  or  it  is  the 
product  of  some  later  singer. 

Finally,  the  argument  from  style  helps  us  on  the 
positive  as  well  as  the  negative  side.  Psalm  xxiii.,  the 
choicest  gem  of  the  Hebrew  lyric,  has  had  its 
Davidic  authorship  disputed  for  many  centuries,  yet 
in  the  turn  of  its  expression  it  brings  to  a  student  of 
style  a  flavor  so  unmistakably  similar  to  the  proven 
Davidic  Psalms,  that  he  has  little  hesitation,  despite 
the  arguments  from  its  peculiar  vocabulary,  to  say 
that  it  is  David's. 


DA  VIDIC  A  UTHORSHIP.  I  3  7 

The  second  canon  which  we  may  apply  in  the 
investigation  of  our  Davidic  Book,  is  the  one  from 
grammatical  form.  As  I  said  in  the  second  hour,  all 
language,  like  the  human  organism  whose  peculiar 
faculty  it  is,  has  a  birth,  growth  and  decay,  and  the 
traces  of  this  growth  in  the  inflection  and  form  of 
words  is  one  of  our  surest  landmarks  in  ascertaining 
the  age  of  any  piece  of  literature  at  issue. 

The  English  language  has  grown  and  changed  in 
the  four  hundred  years  between  Chaucer  (1400)  and 
Pope  (1744.)  The  grammatical  form  in  the  poetry  of 
Pope  and  Gray  (1771)  and  Thomson  (1748)  is  so 
essentially  different  from  that  of  Chaucer  and  Lyd- 
gate  (1461)  and  Occleve  (1454).  that  no  one,  for  a 
moment,  even  were  the  knowledge  of  the  authorship 
lost,  could  refer  the  Canterbury  Tales  to  the  age  of 
the  House  of  Hanover,  or  the  Elegy  in  a  Country 
Church  Yard  to  the  age  of  Richard  H. 

There  must  have  been  a  similar  growth  in  the 
Hebrew  during  the  still  longer  five  hundred  years 
between  David  and  the  Exile,  say,  1055-555  b.  c.  Did 
we  possess  the  Psalms  in  their  original  shape,  we 
should  be  able,  with  reasonable  surety,  to  make  use  of 
this  canon  in  determining  the  age,  and  thus  in  a  mea- 
sure the  authors  of  the  several  poems  of  the  "  Davidic 
Collection."  I  showed  you,  however,  that  the  old 
Hebrew  literature  has  been  alone  preserved  to  our 


138     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

time  in  a  service  book  prepared  as  late  as  the  sixth 
century  after  our  era,  in  which  all  that  was  character- 
istic in  grammatical  form  has  been  flattened  out  into 
a  uniform  liturgical  pronunciation.  We  can  therefore 
make  little  use  of  this  standard.  Though  it  has  been 
used  occasionally  by  scholars,  the  results  have  pos- 
sessed no  assured  value.  The  only  instances  where 
it  may  suggest  a  clue  as  to  the  age  of  the  poems  are 
Psalms  ciii.,  cxxiv.,  cxxxix. 

David  lived  in  an  age  when  the  language  was  still 
spoken  and  written  in  its  purity.  He  himself  writes 
with  classical  exactness.  -  When  we  find  one  or  two 
Psalms  of  the  collection  whose  grammar  shows 
traces  of  Aramaic  forms,  it  is  not  unfair  to  con- 
clude that  they  may  have  come  from  some  author 
exposed  to  Aramaic  influence,  or  from  a  time  when 
the  Aramaic  had  commenced  encroaching  on  the 
Hebrew. 

Would  any  scholar  be  blamed  for  referring  a 
Spanish  poem,  whose  grammar  betrays  the  influence  of 
the  Arabic,  to  a  period  when  it  would  have  been  pos- 
sible for  the  Arabic  to  have  exerted  an  influence  on 
the  Spanish  ?  Would  any  literary  study  of  the 
Spanish  be  possible,  were  this  disallowed  ? 

The  last  canon  in  our  investigation  of  this  Davidic 
collection  is  that  of  historical  allusion.  If  a  German 
poem  contains  allusions  to  the  horrors  of  the  Thirty 


DA  VIDIC  A  UTHORSHIP.  1 3  9 

Years  War,  and  the  burning  of  Magdeburg  by  its  in- 
habitants to  escape  the  sack  of  Tilly,  we  at  once  con- 
clude that  it  must  belong  either  to  a  contemporaneous 
or  to  a  subsequent  era.  Let  me  ask  you  how  we 
should  treat  poems  in  this  Davidic  collection,  mak- 
ing no  pretence  to  be  prophecy,  which  might  happen 
to  contain  allusions  to  the  Exile  not  as  future,  but  as 
a  present  and  stern  reality. 

We  do  find  such  allusions  in  the  last  verses  of 
several  of  the  Psalms,  as  xiv.,  li.,  and  this  has  led 
many  scholars  to  refer  these  poems  to  the  time  of  the 
Exile.  A  priori  there  can  be  no  reason  why  the  old 
collection,  "The  Sacred  Songs  of  David,"  could  not 
contain  hymns  from  any  period  during  five  hundred 
years,  but  in  respect  to  these  Psalms  there  is  another 
and  more  adequate  explanation,  which  shows  us  that 
even  the  argument  from  historical  allusion  may  not 
be  conclusive  unless  accompanied  and  confirmed  by 
that  from  style  and  grammatical  form.  The  style 
of  the  earlier  verses  in  each  of  these  Psalms  is 
clearly  different  from  that  of  the  last  verse,  in  which 
is  found  the  prayer  for  deliverance  from  the  cap- 
tivity, and  for  the  return  of  the  people  to  Zion.  The 
style  of  the  first  verses  is  so  strikingly  similar  to 
David's,  that  we  conclude  that  they  may  have  been 
older  poems  which  were  in  frequent  use  during  the 
Exile,  when  they  received  as  a  final  refrain  or  doxolo- 


140     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

^Y  this  last  verse;  that  this  was  so  commonly 
sung  with  them,  that  it  was  taken  by  the  compilers 
into  our  collection,  and  by  a  mistake  of  later 
editors  and  scribes  it  came  to  be  treated  as  part 
of  the  poem  rather  than  its  liturgical  refrain.  Of 
course  the  question  still  remains  as  to  the  author- 
ship of  the  previous  verses,  in  which  the  style  has 
created  an  impression  in  favor  of  the  Davidic  au- 
thorship. 

But  there  is  another  class  of  Psalms  whose  histori- 
cal allusions  are  too  ingrained  in  the  poem  itself  to 
be  explained  fairly  in  any  such  way.  Several  Psalms, 
as  Ixix.,  Ixxi.,  seem  to  refer  so  clearly  to  the  situation 
of  Jeremiah  when  imprisoned  for  proclaiming  the  ap- 
proach of  the  storm  of  foreign  invasion,  whose  lower- 
ing clouds  his  eye  alone  had  been  opened  to  behold, 
that  most  scholars,  with  justice,  refer  them  to  the 
period  of  Jeremiah,  When  they  further  discover  that 
the  phraseology  and  turn  of  expression  are  similar  to 
that  which  is  found  in  Jeremiah's  prophetic  writings, 
you  perceive,  that  in  the  absence  of  authoritative 
proof  to  the  contrary,  it  creates  as  strong  evi- 
dence as  we  can  have  to  the  authorship  of  any 
piece  of  literature  which  has  come  down  to  us  from 
antiquity. 

We  might  go  through  the  Davidic  Book,  as 
scholars  have  often  done,  with  these  three  canons  of 


DA  VI Die  A  UTHORSIIIP.  1 4 1 

Style,  grammatical  form,  and  historical  allusion,  but 
we  can  no  longer  dwell  upon  it. 
Its  result  has  been  a  double  one  : 

I.  It  has  shown  on  literary  and  historical  ground, 
not  alone  of  value,  as  too  many  arguments  used  in  the 
discussion  of  this  question  are,  for  one  party,  or  one 
confession,  or  one  time,  that  a  large  number  of  poems 
in  the  Davidic  Book  are,  beyond  question,  of  Davidic 
authorship. 

II.  It  has  shown  that  standards  such  as  we  deem 
authoritative  in  all  other  literary  investigation  com- 
pel us  to  refer  some  of  the  poems  to  a  later  au- 
thor, whom  in  a  few  cases  like  that  of  Jeremiah  just 
mentioned,  we  are  able  to  fix,  but  in  the  majority  of 
cases  we  have  to  leave  undetermined. 

As  to  the  number  of  David's  own  compositions,  I 
personally  side  with  the  more  conservative  view  which 
assigns  him  the  much  larger  number  of  Psalms  in  this 
collection.  I  will  not  however  conceal  from  you, 
that  the  ablest  defender  within  our  century  of  the 
historical  and  poetical  character  of  David,  Professor 
Ewald,  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Psalms,  which  will 
ever  remain  a  monument  to  his  own  poetical  genius, 
can  not  see  his  way  clear  to  assign  to  David  more 
than  a  small  number. 

Scholars  differ  widely  as  to  the  number  of  David's 
personal    compositions,   from   the    fact    that   in   the 


142      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Davidic  Book  are  so  many  Psalms  of  uniform  and 
colorless  style  which  can  be  attributed  with  equal 
justice  to  David,  or  to  any  one  else;  so  many  poems 
destitute  of  all  local  setting  and  allusion  which 
may  equally  belong  to  the  Davidic  or  some  later 
time. 

There  is  a  good  story  told  in  a  Mediaeval  Jewish 
poem — a  sort  of  Inferno  one  might  call  it — where 
David,  who  has  grown  anxious  to  know  how  he  has 
been  entreated  by  the  after  time,  is  represented  as 
sending  out  for  all  who  have  commented  on  his  book 
to  appear  before  him.  He  finds,  as  we  might  expect, 
that  all  the  commentators  have  been  consigned  to  the 
Inferno — whence  being  hastily  summoned,  they  come 
running,  books  in  hand,  David  Kimhi  at  the  head, 
make  obeisance  before  him,  and  open  their  books. 
Thereupon  David  asks  them  to  show  him  what  they 
have  written  on  the  sixty-eighth  Psalm, — perhaps  the 
hardest  of  the  collection.  No  sooner  do  they  hear 
the  sixty-eighth  Psalm  mentioned,  than  they  fall  out 
among  themselves,first  with  words,  then  with  blows,  as 
to  whether  David  could  have  written  it,  and  still  con- 
tending, the  king  drives  them,  in  disgust,  away  from 
him.    The  story  would  not  lack  application  even  now. 

There  are  many  Psalms  well-nigh  as  doubtful  or 
difficult  as  the  sixty-eighth,  in  regard  to  which 
scholars  differ  irreconcilably,  and  where  their  previous 


DA  VIDIC  A  UTHORSHIP.  1 43 

training,  their  habit  of  thought,  and  their  hterary 
method  can  alone  determine  their  opinion.  A  con- 
servative mind  will  probably  refer  all  the  doubt- 
ful Psalms  to  David — one  more  radically  disposed 
will  perhaps  refer  none  of  them  to  him.  There- 
fore it  is  that  among  scholars  who  acknowledge 
Davidic  authorship,  there  is  such  disagreement  as  to 
the  authorship  of  the  Psalms  of  the  "  Davidic  Book." 

It  is  hard  to  make  an  estimate  of  the  differing 
views — perhaps  of  the  seventy -three  Psalms  borrowed 
by  our  Psalter  from  the  older  collections,  the  most 
conservative  attribute  to  David  himself  between  fifty 
and  sixty,  the  more  radical  no  more  than  eight  or 
ten.  It  is  a  question  which  can  only  be  decided  for 
each  through  a  patient,  minute  and  loving  study  of 
the  separate  poems. 

However  the  historian  may  settle  David's  cha- 
racter, whether  he  be  a  just  ruler,  great  in  his 
own  right,  or  an  astute  usurper  who  has  snatched 
the  laurels  of  another,  his  authentic  writings  will 
hand  him  down  to  all  future  time  as  the  world's 
greatest  master  of  lyric  song.  He  has  entered  closest 
to  the  heart  of  nature ;  he  has  caught,  as  none  other, 
its  ever  manifold  expression ;  he  has  soared  nearest 
heaven,  and  lifted  mankind  toward  divinity. 


LECTURE    V. 


In  the  closing  moments  of  the  last  hour  I  was 
speaking  to  you  of  the  "Davidic  Song  Book."  I 
endeavored  to  make  clear  to  you  that  it  was  one, 
probably  the  chief  one,  among  the  many  song  books 
of  the  prae-exilic  Temple,  to  whose  other  service 
books,  as  the  "Songs  of  the  Sons  of  Korah  "  and  the 
"  Songs  of  Asaph,"  I  will  later  refer.  I  further  showed 
that  from  this  older  "  Davidic  Book  "  the  collectors 
of  our  present  post-exilic  service  book,  or  rather 
books,  for  there  are  five  of  them,  have  borrowed 
almost  half  their  songs — seventy-three  out  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty. 

Permit  me,  as  supplementary  to  add  one  or  two 
remarks:  ist.  It  is  not  probable  that  the  Psalter 
contains  all  the  songs  of  the  older  book.  It  seems  to 
have  been  a  source  which  was  drawn  on  gradually 
and  in  various  measure  by  the  several  compilers  of 
the  five  books  which  make  up  our  later  collection. 
144 


DA  VIDIC  SONG-B OOK.  145 

We  saw  that  the  first  book  was  composed  entirely 
from  the  "  Davidic  Songs/'  and  was  doubtless  a  selec- 
tion of  its  choicest  and  most  familiar  melodies,  and 
that  in  the  second  book  another  draft  of  eighteen 
songs  is  made  on  the  same  source.  For  some  reason 
unknown  to  us  the  compiler  of  the  third  book  bor- 
rows but  a  single  song  from  this  pra^-exilic  book  ;  and 
in  this  he  is  followed  by  the  compiler  of  the  fourth 
book,  who  borrows  but  two — both,  in  common,  seem- 
ingly preferring  to  draw  on  the  stores  of  religious 
melody  of  the  people  which  until  this  time  had  not 
been  collected  and  which  naturally,  to  a  great  extent, 
were  anonymous.  The  much  later  compiler  of  the 
fifth  book  again  borrows  for  his  collection,  designed 
largely  for  choral  and  liturgical  use,  fifteen  melodies, 
which  were  evidently  used  in  much  the  same  way  in 
the  older  collection.  Of  course  no  one  can,  of  know- 
ledge, assert  that  our  Psalter  does  or  does  not  contain 
all  the  melodies  of  the  Davidic  collection  used  in  the 
worship  of  the  pras-exilic  Temple.  All  we  can  say  is 
that  the  way  in  which  the  compilers  of  the  present 
book  use  the  hymns  seems  to  imply  that  they  bor- 
rowed only  such  as  they  considered  of  value  for  the 
re-established  Temple  worship. 

We  have  shown  before  that  the  guiding  principle 
in   their    collection  was  a  religious  one — their  only 
aim  being  to  furnish   a  suitable  service  book  for  the 
7 


146     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

worship  of  Jehovah.  The  Psalter  cannot  be  said  to  be 
an  anthology  of  the  best  Hebrew  poetry,  even  of  the 
best  religious  poetry,  for  much  that  we  know  must  have 
been  accessible  to  the  collectors,  as  the  Song  by  the 
Sea  and  the  Song  of  Deborah,  as  poetry  superior  to 
anything  in  their  collection,  has  not  been  made  use  of. 
If  we  can  make  clear  to  ourselves  the  design  of 
their  collection,  we  can  then  understand  why  they 
borrow  so  largely  from  the  worship  books  of 
the  First  Temple,  which  had  grown  sacred  and  fa- 
miliar to  the  people.  In  the  present  lies  mirrored 
all  the  history  of  the  past,  be  it  for  pohtics,  or  art,  or 
literature.  There  is  no  school  whose  discipline  is  so 
essential  to  the  student  of  letters  as  is  a  knowledge  of 
the  method  of  his  own  age  and  race.  Grote,  by  his 
conversance  with  the  English  finance  and  politics  of 
his  own  time,  made  clear  many  problems  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  Greek  states  which  had  for  centuries  baf- 
fled scholars  who  had  approached  it  alone  from  the 
standpoint  of  their  Greek  studies.  Perhaps  a  study 
of  the  old  Temple  hymns  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
modern  hymn  collector  might  yield  equally  valuable 
results,  for  with  all  the  differences  of  conception  and 
expression  peculiar  to  an  alien  race  and  an  early  time, 
the  Hebrew  hymn  collectors  of  twenty-three  centu- 
ries ago  seem  to  have  followed  the  same  canons  in 
their  collection  as  any  skilful  and  painstaking  collec- 


METHOD  OF  COLLECTION.  I  47 

tor  would  use  at  the  present.  And  let  me  illustrate 
this  by  showing  you  the  method  in  which  they 
treated  the  hymns  which  they  have  collected. 

You  well  know  the  loving  care  with  which  a 
modern  collector  gathers  from  all  sources  those 
hymns,  which  through  use  or  association  have  grown 
sacred,  with  what  diligence  he  seeks  the  earliest  form 
through  their  manifold  versions  and  improvements  by 
later  editions,  with  what  minute  accuracy  he  collates 
and  restores  the  text,  how  he  searches  musty  archives 
to  establish  date  and  authorship,  and  acquaints  him- 
self with  all  the  contemporaneous  history  that  he  may 
understand  clearly  their  local  allusions.  Could  we 
conceive  of  our  Psalm  collectors,  whoever  they  may 
have  been,  acting  in  somewhat  the  same  way,  I  be- 
lieve they  would  be  more  human  to  us  without  being 
one  whit  less  inspired.  We  have,  in  the  Psalms 
themselves,  convincing  evidence  that  their  literary 
workmanship  was  not  unlike  that  of  collectors  in  the 
present  day. 

The  thirteenth  poem  in  the  first  book,  numbered  as 
fourteenth  in  our  English  Bibles,  is  a  very  celebrated 
one,  more  perhaps  for  its  general  sentiment  than  its 
poetical  expression,  and  in  the  early  time,  as  its  re- 
frain in  the  last  verse  shows,  it  was  a  very  popular 
and  familiar  one.  The  text,  judging  from  the  few 
marks  which  can  guide  one,  has  been  edited  with 


148      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

care.  Quite  remarkably  we  find  the  same  poem  (the 
fifty-third  in  the  EngHsh  version)  in  the  second  book 
(xUi.-lxxii.)  which  as  we  have  seen,  was  made  later 
than  the  first  and  by  another  hand.  Whether  the  com- 
piler of  the  second  book  was  aware  of  the  existence  of 
the  same  Psalm  in  the  former  collection  or  not,  we 
have  no  means  of  knowing.  Of  great  value  however, 
for  our  insight  into  the  literary  method  of  the  com- 
pilers, is  the  fact  that  with  the  undoubted  similarity  of 
the  two  Psalms  patent  to  any  one  even  in  the  English, 
we  find  so  many  slight  differences  as  to  compel  us  to 
assume  that  both  collectors  could  not  have  had  before 
them  the  same  text  of  the  poem.  (And  let  me  remark 
here  for  those  conversant  with  the  Hebrew  text  that 
differences  such  as  this  must  be  referred  back  to  the 
compilers  of  the  separate  books  ;  as  with  the  collec- 
tion of  the  five  books  in  one  common  Psalter  or  ser- 
vice-book came  a  tendency  toward  unification  of  the 
textual  diversities,  which  shows  itself  in  several  note- 
worthy ways.)  When  we  minutely  scrutinize  the  fifty- 
third  Psalm,  we  find  its  textual  diversities  from  the 
fourteenth  precisely  of  such  a  kind  that  did  they  occur 
in  a  modern  hymn  collection,  we  should  say  that  both 
the  collectors  have  had  before  them  the  same  old 
hymn  ;  that  the  fourteenth  has  been  edited  with  great 
care  and  from  good  manuscripts,  while  the  fifty- 
third  has  been  edited  from  imperfect  manuscripts,  or, 


METHOD  OF  COLLECTION. 


149 


more  probably,  taken  from  some  later  hymn  book 
where  it  had  suffered  the  attrition  necessarily  conse- 
quent upon  constant  use.  A  similar  case  occurs  in 
the  great  mediaeval  hymn,  the  Dies  Irce,  which  pre- 
sents two  versions  almost  precisely  in  a  similar  re- 
lation to  one  another  as  are  the  fourteenth  and  the 
fifty-third  Psalms,  Is  there  any  reason  why  the  same 
should  not  be  true  for  our  Psalm  collection  ?  If  it  is 
not  true,  how  then  shall  we  explain  the  diverse  editing 
of  the  same  poem? 

Or  again,  Psalm  xl.  is  one  of  the  longer  Psalms, 
whose  heavily  drawn  out  lines  produce  a  feeling 
of  satiety  utterly  foreign  to  the  impression  of 
gracefulness  and  ease  which  come  to  us  from  the 
acknowledged  Davidic  Psalms  ;  its  authorship  has 
also  been  long  in  dispute  on  the  ground  of  external 
allusion.  But  this  is  not  to  our  point  here.  What 
we  wish  to  call  your  attention  to  is  that  Psalm 
Ixx.,  is  no  more  than  the  final  verses  of  Psalm 
xl.,  which  have  been  borrowed  by  the  collector 
of  our  second  book  for  a  purpose  which  no  one  could 
ever  divine  from  the  senseless  translation  of  the 
inscription  in  the  English  version  — • ''  to  bring  to 
remembrance."  As  the  original  inscription  informs 
us,  it  is  a  choral  refrain  sung  by  the  priest  as  the 
incense  cast  on  the  altar  began  to  rise  with  its  sweet 
savor  toward  heaven.     You  may  know  that  there  is  a 


150     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

not  dissimilar  choral  sung  now  in  some  of  the 
oriental  churches  at  the  kindling  of  the  incense.  In 
this  case  the  collector  has  not  borrowed  the  entire 
song  in  the  shape  in  which,  as  we  know  from  Psalm 
xl.,  it  existed  in  the  older  book,  but  has  merely  se- 
lected the  few  verses  from  it  which  seemed  to  him 
best  adapted  for  his  new  choral;  the  marks  of  his  work- 
manship being  so  clear  that  even  a  tyro  can  perceive 
them.  The  treatment  of  the  older  poem  is  not  unlike 
that  of  the  well  known  "  Mother  dear,  Jerusalem," 
selections  from  which  are  often  made  use  of  for 
recessionals  or  doxologies.  The  compiler  of  Psalm 
Ixx.,  evidently  had  before  him  the  same  text  as 
the  compiler  of  Psalm  xl.;  the  minute  differences 
between  the  two  Psalms  show  that  he  allowed  himself 
to  change  in  the  fragment  those  references  to  the 
body  of  the  poem  which  would  have  rendered  it 
unfit  to  be  used  as  a  separate  piece.  Does  he  not 
thus  unconsciously,  and  therefore  most  convincingly, 
disclose  his  literary  method  as  one  precisely  similar 
to  that  which  you  or  I  would  now  make  use  of 
under  like  circumstances  ?     Once  more — 

We  have  said  that  the  fifth  and  last  book  of  our 
Psalter  (cvii.-cl.)  was  much  later  than  the  other 
books  and  was  designed  as  a  liturgical  supplement  to 
them,  perhaps  not  unlike  the  supplemental  collection 
of  chants  which  we   now  so  often  see  at  the  close  of 


METHOD  OF  COLLECTION. 


151 


the  hymn  books  of  some  Protestant  bodies  which  are 
hovering  on  the  verge  of  Hturgical  song. 

When  we  examine  the  second  poem  in  this  col- 
lection (Psalm  cviii.  in  the  English  version)  we  find  it 
composed  of  fragments  from  two  poems  in  the  second 
book,  with  a  single  new  introductory  verse  of  its 
own — verses  2-6  being  identical  with  Psalm  Ivii.,  8- 
12;  verses  7-14  identical  with  Psalm  Ix.,  7-14.  The 
"make-up,"  as  an  artist  would  say,  betrays  the  me- 
thod of  the  collector  of  the  fifth  book.  If  you  will 
compare  the  opening  verses  of  Psalm  cviii.,  with 
the  corresponding  verses  of  Psalm  Ivii.,  you  will 
see  that  he  has  borrowed  them,  even  to  the  final 
liturgical  refrain,  which  could  hardly  have  been 
added  ere  Psalm  Ivii.  had  been  adapted  to  the 
Temple  worship.  If  you  will  then  compare  in 
Psalm  cviii.  itself,  verses  2-6  with  verses  7-f4, 
you  will  find  even  in  the  English  a  radical  dif- 
ference between  the  two  fragments  in  style,  in  treat- 
ment, and  in  situation.  The  first  is  a  fragment  from 
a  peaceful  pastoral  idyl — the  second,  a  fragment  from 
a  song  breathing  of  war,  whose  very  measure  re- 
echoes the  din  of  the  camp.  They  possess  no  com- 
mon idea  which  would  suggest  their  union,  while 
placed  together  as  they  are,  without  any  effort  toward 
unity  of  treatment  or  any  trace  of  design  to  form  from 
them  a  new  poem,  we  are  forced  to  conclude  that 


152 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  FSALMS. 


they  were  united  for  some  purely  liturgical  purpose. 
Had  we  the  phenomena  exhibited  by  the  text  of 
Psalm  cviii.,  as  compared  with  Psalms  Ivii.,  Ix.,  pre- 
sented in  any  modern  collection,  we  should  without 
hesitation  say  that  the  collector  of  the  liturgical  sup- 
plement had  before  him  the  older  hymn  book  from 
which,  for  some  liturgical  purpose,  he  had  taken 
these  two  fragments.  When  we  found  further  in  one 
of  the  fragments  a  refrain  first  added  to  the  original 
hymn  by  the  compiler  of  the  previous  hymn  book, 
would  it  not  be  conclusive  evidence  that  the  liturgical 
collector  has  made  this  later  hymn  book  his  source, 
and  not  gone  back  to  the  original  ?  I  leave  it  with 
you  to  decide  whether  for  literary  phenomena,  for 
which,  when  occurring  in  our  own  day,  we  have  a 
clear  explanation,  we  must,  when  occurring  in  our 
Psalm  collection,  form  some  new  theory. 

I  have  thus  endeavored  briefly  to  present  some  few 
of  the  clues  which  rightly  followed  will  lead  us 
into  the  secret  of  the  literary  methods  of  the  post- 
exilic  Psalm-collectors,  I  have  not  striven  to  present 
the  strongest  points,  but  rather  those  where  the 
evidence  lay  on  the  surface,  and  might,  in  some  meas- 
ure, be  estimated  at  its  proper  value  even  by  those 
who  have  only  the  English  version  at  their  control. 
Did  time  permit  and  were  I  speaking  to  an  audience 
who  could  follow  the  detail  of  linguistic  minutiae,  on 


THE  OKIES  OF  INSPIRA  TION.  \  c  3 

which  every  hterary  investigation  of  value  must  be 
founded,  I  imagine  a  convincing  case  could  be  made 
out. 

In  these  lectures  I  have  repeatedly  had  occasion  to 
say  that  we  are  dealing  with  Hebrew  literature  solely 
as  literature  and  can  not  discuss  the  varying  views  of 
inspiration.  Am  I  asked  what  effect  this  proved 
editorial  and  literary  growth  of  our  Psalter  has  on  its 
inspiration,  I  reply  none  at  all,  but  further,  and  most 
important  of  all,  that  it  must  first  be  settled  in  whom 
inspiration  inheres  and  just  to  how  many  it  extends. 
I  presume  there  are  few,  if  any,  of  us  who  would  be 
disposed  to  deny  inspiration  to  the  original  form  in 
which  these  poems  came  from  their  authors,  but 
whatever  our  views  may  be  on  this  point,  none  of  you 
can  fail  to  see  what  difficulties  arise  the  moment  we 
extend  this  principle  to  the  editors.  It  has  been 
the  rock  on  which  the  varying  confessions  have  gone 
asunder.  The  moment  inspiration  has  been  pre- 
dicated of  the  first  remove  from  the  original  authors, 
it  has  seemed  impossible  to  draw  an  authoritative  line. 
The  Latin  church  by  the  authority  of  the  Tridentine 
Council  predicates  inspiration  of  Jerome's  transla- 
tion; the  oriental  churches  regard  the  Greek  Septu- 
agint  as  of  final  resort,  while,  till  the  present  day 
many  people  of  our  English  tongue  hold  as  authori- 
tative a  version,  which  though  in  the  main  correct,  in 


/ 


I^A      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

many  obscurer  passages  gives  not  only  not  the  words 
but  not  the  sense  of  the  original.  I  imagine  that 
those  of  you  to  whom  inspiration  means  most  will 
agree  with  me  that  it  must  reside  in  the  original, 
and  will  also  agree  with  me  in  the  effort  to  press 
back,  through  the  literary  form  in  which  later  editors 
have  cast  the  writings,  to  the  ipsisshna  verba  of  the 
authors.  It  is  generally  granted  that  the  form  in 
which  all  the  early  Hebrew  literature  has  come  to  us 
is  that  into  which  it  has  been  cast  by  later  editors, 
while  the  manifold  differences  of  readings  in  each  and 
all  the  books  attest  the  changes  of  text  which  have 
come  in  by  the  hand  of  copyists. 

The  literary  study  of  the  Hebrew,  or  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  method  through  which  its  writings  have 
assumed  their  present  shape,  at  no  point  therefore 
trenches  on  any  rational  theories  of  inspiration  which 
may  be  sacred  to  any  one.  So  let  us  now  press  back 
one  point  further  and  ask  what  this  Davidic  Book  is 
on  which  the  editors  of  our  Psalter  have  drawn  so 
liberally  for  their  collection. 

I  have  said  that  it  was  one  of  the  books  of  the 
earlier  Temple  service.  This  is  shown  by  many 
musical  expressions  in  the  inscriptions  and  the  litur- 
gical refrains  of  the  Psalms  themselves  which  were 
borrowed  by  our  Psalter  collectors  as  an  integral  part 
of  the  songs  which  they  took  from  the  older  book. 


"  SA  CRED  SONGS  OF  DA  VWr  I  5  5 

It  was  therefore  not  a  collection  of  Davidic  poems 
but  a  service-book  which  had  been  used  in  the 
Solomonic  Temple  worship. 

It  was  called  "Sacred  Songs  of  David,"  not  because 
it  was  composed  exclusively  of  Davidic  songs,  but 
because  David  either  inaugurated  the  collection,  or  his 
songs  were  its  largest  element.  It  contains  no  poem 
older  than  the  time  of  David,  so  in  any  account  we 
may  make  of  it  to  ourselves  we  need  not  antedate  his 
reign ;  of  the  previous  development  of  poetry  among 
the  Hebrew  people  I  will  speak  when  I  come  to  take 
up  the  fonn  of  the  poems.  The  collector  of  the 
third  book  does,  it  is  true,  begin  his  collection  with  a 
poem  of  Moses  whose  authenticity  has  been  doubted 
by  very  many  scholars,  but  for  whose  later  origin 
there  is  no  conclusive  literary  ground  save  we  accept 
the  Stat  nominis  umbra  theory  of  Moses  common 
in  the  Leyden  school.  This  poem  of  Moses,  however, 
does  not  come  from  the  Davidic  collection,  but  has 
been  taken  from  some  source  which  is  not  known  to 
us,  perchance  the  old  song  book— the  ^T-^  ■^??. 
Sepher  /lajyyashar— the  "  Book  of  Valor,"  ( }^  \_ 
Hamasat—"  heroic  poetry,")  which  is  quoted 
from  so  often  in  the  early  historical  books. 

The  fables  of  the  Talmud  that  some  of  the  inscrip- 
tionless  Psalms  are  by  Adam  and  Noah,  are  too 
worthless   to   be  more  than   mentioned;    disproven 


156     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

without  further  words  by  the  fact  that  neither  of  these 
could  have  spoken  or  written  Hebrew,  which  had  not 
evolved  itself  as  a  dialect  of  the  mother  Shemitic 
tongue  until  long  after  their  time.  We  come  then  to 
the  period  of  David  as  the  time  when  the  Davidic 
Book  must  have  had  its  origin. 

The  eulogies  which  are  lavished  upon  David  as  the 
creator  of  religious  song  are  founded  on  misappre- 
hension or  incorrect  information.  In  the  last  hour 
we  studied  briefly  his  poetical  character,  and  saw  that 
as  the  great  master  of  lyric  song  he  needs  no  laurels 
plucked  from  his  predecessors;  it  would  be  as  little 
to  say  for  him  that  he  created  religious  song  as  it 
would  be  to  say  for  Shakspere  that  he  created  the 
English  drama.  It  is  granted  but  to  few  rare  spirits, 
as  Dante,  to  create  a  literature  and  remain  its  master 
and  model  for  all  future  time.  We  cannot  anticipate 
what  we  have  at  some  future  time  to  say  of  the  rise 
of  religious  song,  but  four  centuries  before  David  was 
born,  the  priest  Pentaur  had  sung  the  immortal  hymn 
to  Amun-Ra,  the  source  of  life  and  light,  in  which  we, 
three  thousand  years  later  and  of  a  different  creed, 
could  well  greet,  morning  by  morning,  the  rising  sun. 
Even  in  the  Shemitic  orient  and  among  the  Hebrews 
themselves  there  had  been  not  a  few  religious  singers 
ere  the  master  appeared,  some  of  whom,  as  Deborah, 
touched  a  few  keys  with  more  power  than  he  himself 
ever  attained. 


JDA  VID  AND  SHAKSPERE  COMPARED.        \  5  7 

David's  appearance  on  the  stage  of  history  was 
not  unhke  to  that  of  our  Enghsh  master  Shaks- 
pere.  Both  came  just  at  the  same  hnguistic  period; 
Shakspere,  when  the  purest  Enghsh  born  of  Saxon 
and  Norman  was  still  undefiled — David  when  Jewish, 
born  of  the  patois  of  the  south  had  not  yet  been 
touched  by  the  blight  of  Aramaic ;  Shakspere  at  the 
opening  of  the  heroic  age  of  England,  when  Eng- 
lishmen, weary  of  being  rent  asunder  by  intestine 
fbuds,  begin  to  feel  for  the  first  that  they  are  a  nation 
and  are  just  entering  on  a  splendid  career  of  coloni- 
zation which  is  to  carry  their  power  and  language 
round  the  world — David,  when  Israel,  weary  of  the 
unrest  and  anarchy  of  the  Judges, feels  for  the  first  its 
nationality  and  begins  its  brief  period  as  a  foreign 
power ;  Shakspere,  at  the  close  of  a  religious  refor- 
mation which  had  upturned  and  reshaped  English  so- 
ciety— David  at  the  close  of  the  religious  reformation 
under  Samuel,  which,  if  rightly  understood,  would 
seem  more  remarkable  to  us  than  the  Protestant  Re- 
formation of  Europe.  Both  came  at  epochs  known 
in  literature  as  creative,  at  periods  when  both  their 
peoples  were  entering  on  a  new  era,  when  the  national 
life  coursed  quickest,  and  the  spirits  of  the  people 
were  most  buoyant. 

But    even  with  all  the  likeness  in  the  surrounding 
of  the  two  masters,  it   is  in  their   mind  and  art  we 


158     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

must  look  for  the  closest  link  between  them,  and 
when  I  say  this  I  am  aware  of  the  necessary 
unlikeness  of  mind  between  a  dramatic  and  a 
lyric  poet — perhaps  the  two  masters  are  the  nearer 
together  because  each  so  strikingly  illustrates  this 
dissimilarity.  The  dramatist  who  deals  with  human 
passion  must  know  men  and  human  motives,  that  he 
may  be  able  to  reproduce,  in  pantomime,  the  mimic 
play  of  life.  Never  was  there  one  who  knew  and 
drew  life  as  surely  as  did  our  English  master — there 
is  hardly  a  poet  who  lacks  this  element  as  much  as 
David.  The  lyrist  is  nothing  if  not  a  subjective  artist 
— the  world  to  him  is  a  panorama,  pictured  by  the 
imagination,  before  the  illumined  eye  of  his  mind. 
He  is  the  creature  of  the  moment,  his  art  is  to  catch 
on  his  canvas  the  rainbow  colors  of  his  distant  hori- 
zons ere  they  fleet  from  view.  Necessarily  in  paint- 
ing nature  he  reproduces  himself,  and  we  have  elegy 
or  idyl  as  the  poet  himself  is  grave  or  gay.  Scarcely 
in  any  literature  do  we  have  so  subjective  an  artist  as 
David;  one  whose  poetry  is  more  the  expression  of 
the  passion  of  the  moment,  or  one  who  so  constantly 
betrays  his  personal  emotion;  perhaps  in  no  literature 
do  we  have  so  objective  an  artist  as  Shakspere,  or 
one  whose  personality  so  completely  withdraws  itself 
behind  the  characters  he  causes  to  pass  before  us. 
And  yet  with  this  dissimilarity  there  is  a  similarity 


DA  VinS  LITER  A  R  Y  METHOD. 


159 


in  their  art,  for  each  was  perfect  in  its  kind  —in  their 
mind,  for  each  was  most  dehcately  adapted  for  its 
work.  Had  David  possessed  the  dramatic  mind,  the 
world  would  have  lost  the  eighth  Psalm — had  Shaks- 
pere  possessed  the  lyric  mind,  the  world  would  have 
lost  Hamlet,  and  I  know  not  which  were  the  greater 
loss.  They  may  stand  forever  together  as  the  two 
great  masters  of  the  world's  poetry,  dissimilar,  no 
doubt,  in  that  they  fill  different  spheres,  but  still  alike 
in  that  in  their  art  they  are  equally  great. 

In  the  last  hour  I  said  that  David  was  an  original 
artist,  and  so  he  was.  He  created  for  the  Hebrew 
lyric  a  new  and  perfect  form  which  his  successors 
could  only  strive  to  imitate  and  approach.  But  as 
every  other  literary  artist,  he  drew  on  the  stores  of 
the  past.  We  can  trace  very  clear  recollections  of 
the  older  "Song  by  the  Sea"  in  several  of  his  poems, 
and  did  we  have  more  remains  of  the  secular  and  re- 
ligious poetry  current  in  his  day,  we  should  doubtless 
find  this  only  the  more  confirmed.  Whether  he  col- 
lected his  own  poems  or  not,  we  do  not  know ;  busied 
as  he  was  in  the  organization  of  the  service  for  the 
Temple  he  was  not  suffered  to  build,  possibly  he  may 
have  collected,  doubtless  he  did  collect,  a  book  for 
the  liturgical  worship.  Judging  from  David's  literary 
method  shown  in  the  composition  of  his  Psalms,  we 
should  have  reason  to  believe  that  he  drew  on  the 


l60     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  FSALMS. 

Stores  of  older  religious  hymns  in  the  composition 
of  his  book.  It  may  have  contained  the  old  songs  so 
freely  made  use  of  by  the  compilers  of  the  historical 
books ;  he  may  have  drawn  on  the  still  earlier  col- 
lections, the  "Book  of  Valor"  and  the  "Book  of  War 
Songs,"  which  the  annalists  of  his  time  so  frequently 
quote  from.  We  are  told  that  there  were  religious 
^/P'^,  Moshelim,  troubadours  who  wandered  from 
village  to  village  among  the  people,  singing  the 
melodies  of  the  desert  and  the  olden  time.  It  is  not 
impossible  that  his  book  contained  some  of  these 
religious  songs  which  had  been  handed  down  by 
word  of  mouth. 

David's  reign,  with  all  the  brilliancy  of  its  foreign 
conquests,  was  internally  a  failure,  and  ended  disas- 
trously. Napoleon  once  said  of  a  monarch  known  to 
you  all  that  one  troiivere  on  the  throne  would  suffice 
Europe  for  a  century.  Israel  showed  by  its  constant 
sedition  and  revolts,  that  it  had  grown  weary  of  its 
poet  king  who  could  rule  neither  his  family  nor  his 
subjects.  It  was  alone  his  praetorian  guard  of  foreign 
mercenaries,  the  Crethi  and  Plethi,  and  the  cunning 
of  his  councillors,  which  saved  him  from  the  revolt  of 
Absalom,  First  in  the  after  time,  when  his  foreign 
conquests  had  all  been  lost,  and  Israel,  divided  against 
itself,  had  fallen  a  prey  to  the  stranger,  men  began  to 
look  back  with  pride  and  sorrowful  longing  to  the 


SOL  0  MO  NIC  A  UTHORSHIP.  \  6 1 

son  of  Jesse,  who  from  a  shepherd  boy  had  risen  to 
be  a  king  who  had  conquered  their  enemies  and  made 
Israel  great. 

Whether  Solomon  cast  the  Davidic  Book  into  a  new 
shape  for  the  more  elaborate  ritual  of  the  Temple, 
built  for  him  by  Tyrian  artificers,  we  do  not  know. 
Some  have  gone  so  far  as  to  state  the  theory  on  the 
ground  of  the  seventy-second  Psalm,  that  he  issued  a 
new  edition  of  it  for  the  dedication  service  of  the 
Temple,  a  good  instance  of  the  many  theories  of  the 
commentators,  reminding  one  of  the  attempt  in 
palaeontology  to  restore  a  mammoth  from  a  single 
tooth. 

Solomon,  if  we  consider  authentic  the  writings 
ascribed  to  him,  was  not  a  lyric  poet.  His  habit  of 
mind  tended  rather  to  that  sententious  and  aphoristic 
gnomic  poetry,  which  in  the  Orient,  where  it  has  been 
the  most  common  species  of  literature  from  the  earli- 
est times  to  the  present,  is  always  connected  with  his 
name  as  its  great  master.  It  seems  probable  that  the 
two  Psalms  Ixxii.,  cxxvii.,  which  in  the  original  bear 
the  inscription  "  to  Solomon,"  are  dedicated  to  him 
and  not  by  him,  a  sense  which  is  well  conveyed  to 
the  English  reader  by  the  "  for  Solomon  "  of  our  ver- 
sions. The  seventy-second  Psalm  is  an  invocation  of 
blessing  upon  him  by  some  contemporary  poet  whose 
name  is  not  given  us  by  our  Psalter  collectors — it  is 


I  62     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

not  even  ascribed  b/  them  to  the  Davidic  Book, 
though  the  supplemental  note  at  the  end  of  the 
Psalm  points  to  their  having  taken  it  from  there.  The 
Psalm  is  so  clearly  dedicated  to  the  king  that  those 
who,  against  language  and  tradition,  insist  on  regard- 
ing the  Psalm  as  of  Solomonic  authorship,  are  com- 
pelled to  assume  that  he  must  have  written  it  for 
his  people  to  sing  in  his  own  honor.  The  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-seventh  Psalm  is  one  of  the  late 
Pilgrim  Songs  whose  inscription  "  to  Solomon "  or 
"  for  Solomon  "  fails  in  the  Septuagint  and  many  of 
the  early  versions ;  there  is  reason  to  believe  it  is  of 
late  origin  in  the  Hebrew.  We  simply  then  do 
not  know  whether  David  originally  collected  his 
book  while  Solomon  revised  and  re-edited  it  or  not. 
As,  however,  it  contained  so  many  later  hymns,  we 
must  look  to  some  subsequent  literary  period  for  its 
revision  into  the  shape  in  which,  it  lay  before  the  com- 
pilers of  our  Psalter.  There  is  little  difficulty  in  the 
quest,  for  there  is  but  one  distinctly  literary  period 
subsequent  to  the  time  of  Solomon. 

The  reign  of  Solomon  is  known  in  history  as  the 
golden  age  of  Hebrew  letters  and  of  the  Hebrew 
nation,  but  one  may  hear  in  it  the  mutterings  of  the 
coming  storm  as  clearly  as  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV. 
It  was  indeed  a  reign  of  magnificence,  and  unprece- 
dented wealth  flowed  into  the  royal  coffers  from  the 


REIGN  OF  SOL  OMON.  1 63 

shrewd  commercial  policy  of  opening  up  through  his 
territory  a  new  and  shorter  line  to  the  Phoenician 
trade.  His  splendid  court,  his  retinue  of  wives,  the 
ivory  palaces  of  Jerusalem,  bear  witness  to  the  wealth 
and  extravagance  of  the  age.  But  it  was,  even  for  the 
orient,  an  intensely  personal  government  which  the 
men  of  Israel  with  their  inbred  spirit  of  liberty  could 
not  willingly  brook.  The  people  were  ground  to  the 
earth  by  the  oppressive  taxation  necessary  to  main- 
tain the  royal  state.  The  tribes  of  the  north,  dissat- 
isfied by  the  aggrandizement  of  Judah  at  their  ex- 
pense, even  before  his  death  show  open  resistance  to 
his  authority,  and  are  on  the  verge  of  a  general  revolt. 
In  the  closing  years  of  his  reign  he  is  forced  to 
accept  humiliating  treaties  rather  than  risk  the  in- 
ternal disorder  which  a  foreign  war  would  have 
brought  on.  His  vain,  weak  and  obstinate  successor 
but  garners  the  whirlwind  which  his  father  had 
sown. 

After  the  northern  kingdom  had  cast  off  the 
authority  of  the  Davidic  house  it  seemed  as  if  no 
other  could  hold  its  ground.  Dynasty  after  dynasty 
of  usurpers  whose  right  to  the  throne  was  secured  by 
murder,  followed  and  displaced  one  another  in  rapid 
succession — within  the  first  century  there  are  no  less 
than  five.  It  is  a  history  of  two  centuries  of  internal 
disorder  which  only  at  intervals  ceased  that  all  might 


164     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

unite  against  the.  common  foe  on  the  north.  There 
was  no  learned  class  in  the  Ephraimitic  state,  nor  if 
there  had  been  one  would  there  have  been  the 
leisure  and  repose  essential  to  a  literary  period. 

The  kingdom  of  Judah,  on  the  other  hand, 
governed,  save  for  occasional  and  short  intervals,  as 
when  a  pretender  like  Athaliah  (^^?D^)  seizes  the 
throne,  by  the  dynasty  of  David  to  which  the  people 
had  grown  attached,  remained  almost  exempt  from 
internal  disorder.  It  rarely  measured  arms  with 
Ephraim  without  its  northern  rival's  proving  too 
strong  for  it,  and  it  seems  probable  that  after  the  fight 
at  Beth-Shemesh,^  Israel  for  a  number  of  years  held 
complete  control  of  Judah.  The  quiet  assured  by  the 
regular  and  undisputed  succession  of  its  monarchs 
gave  to  the  smaller  state  the  leisure  for  internal  devel- 
opment, which  Israel  with  its  greater  power  never 
secured — the  Temple  and  schools  of  Jerusalem  fur- 
nished a  centre  for  the  literary  class  which  Israel  did 
not  possess.  Notwithstanding  this  quiet,  there  seem 
to  be  but  two  periods  of  the  Jewish  monarchy — that 
of  Jehoshaphat  and  that  of  Hezekiah — which  can  lay 
claim  to  be  regarded  in  any  sense  of  the  word  as 
literary  epochs.  Jehoshaphat's  reign  is  an  afterglow 
of  the  glories  of  the  Solomonic  age.     It  was  a  period 

1  Victory  of  Jehoash  of  Israel  over  Amaziah  of  Judah.     2  Kings  xiv. 
11-14.     (T.) 


REIGN  OF  HEZEKIAH. 


165 


of  peace  and  prosperity,  but  more  than  all  it  was  a 
period  of  educational  reform.  Its  abiding  interest  to 
us  is  the  pedagogic  commission,  which  the  king  sends 
through  the  land  to  reform  the  public  instruction  and 
arrange  for  the  proper  primary  education  of  the 
rural  districts,  antedating  by  two  thousand  years  our 
modern  educational  reformers.  It  might  of  course  in 
a  certain  sense  be  called  a  literary  period,  but  as  the 
movement  does  not  seem  to  have  extended  beyond 
educational  reform,  I  prefer  to  compare  it  with  the 
period  of  the  Carlovingian  "  Missi"\  and  not  class  it 
as  a  distinctly  literary  time.  We  have  beyond  doubt 
in  the  Davidic  book  and  thence  in  our  Psalter  several 
songs  which  unmistakably  breathe  of  this  time,  but 
there  is  no  record  of  any  collection  of  the  older  liter- 
ature such  as  would  lead  us  to  refer  a  revision  of  the 
Davidic  Temple  Book  to  this  period. 

The  only  period  between  Solomon  and  the  Exile 
which  can  be  given,  with  justice,  the  name  literary, 
is  the  reign  of  Hezekiah.  Hezekiah  is  often  sketched 
to  us  as  the  Hebrew  Pisistratus,  one  who  played  in 
the  collection  and  preservation  of  Hebrew  letters 
somewhat  the  same  role  that  the  tyrant  of  Athens, 
who  lived  a  century  after  him,  (Hezekiah  716-687, 
Pisistratus  600-527),  did  in  collecting  the  songs  of 

^The  Missi  were  special  judges  sent  out  to  inquire  into  and  correct 
abuses.     (T.) 


I  66     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Homer.  In  studying  the  character  of  Hezekiah 
one  gains  the  impression  that  he  was  a  man  cast 
in  much  the  same  mould  as  James  I.  of  England 
— a  vain  and  conscious  pedant,  whose  faith  serves 
him  as  a  matter  of  controversy  rather  than  a  guide  of 
life — in  his  internal  management  weak  and  shifty,  by 
turns  despotic  and  tolerant — in  his  foreign  policy 
seeking  to  gain  by  a  tortuous  overreaching  of  his 
neighbors  what  directness  alone  coujd  accomplish, 
and  more  than  once  bringing  himself  and  his  state  to 
the  verge  of  ruin.  It  is  here,  as  so  often  elsewhere 
in  history,  that  we  have  to  thank  the  pedantry  and 
the  desire  of  weak  men  to  be  considered  as  patrons  of 
letters,  for  the  collection  and  preservation  of  some  of 
our  most  priceless  remains  of  antiquity.  He  appointed 
a  board  of  scholars  to  whom  he  gave  commission  to 
collect  all  the  accessible  remains  of  the  earlier  litera- 
ture, and  to  edit  them  in  new  and  revised  form. 
Have  you  never  noticed  even  in  your  English  Bibles 
the  note  this  old  commission  has  left  in  Proverbs 
XXV.  i  ?  All  the  last  seven  chapters  of  Proverbs  have 
been  saved  to  us  by  their  efforts — were  probably  col- 
lected by  them  from  the  old  manuscripts  which  they 
were  collating  to  establish  the  text  of  the  book,  and 
added  by  them  as  a  supplement  to  the  imperfect 
copies  of  their  own  day.  The  Talmud  refers  to  them 
the  collection  and  revised  edition  of  all  the  Hebrew 


THE  DA  VI Die  BOOK.  1 67 

literature  existing  in  their  time,  but  whether  this  be 
so  or  not,  we  find,  as  of  utmost  importance  for  our  pre- 
sent study,  that  Hezekiah  set  on  foot  a  reorganization 
of  the  Temple  worship,  and  for  this  purpose  had  a  new 
collection  made  of  the  older  Davidic  songs.  The 
liturgical  inscription  of  Hezekiah's  own  poem  pre- 
served to  us  incidentally  (Isaiah  xxxviii.  9,  '^^?^  mik- 
tab  for  °J^9^  miktam)  renders  it  probable  that  this 
too,  was  included  in  the  same  collection. 

We  have  thus  reached  the  time  when  the  "  Davidic 
Book  "  was  collected  substantially  into  the  form  in 
which  it  lay  before  the  compilers  of  the  post-exilic 
Psalter.  The  one  or  two  Jeremianic  poems  which 
the  book  seems  later  to  have  contained,  came  gra- 
dually into  use  in  the  communities  of  the  Exile, 
to  whose  feeling  of  despairing  supplication  they 
gave  expression  as  none  of  the  older  songs  were 
able  to  do. 

I  trust  the  sequence  of  my  thought  has  been  clear : 
that  our  Psalter  as  it  exists  in  the  Hebrew  original 
and  thence  in  our  English  translation  was  the  hymn 
book  collected  for  the  worship  of  the  Second  Temple; 
that  on  a  priori  grounds  it  was  natural  to  suppose 
that  the  collectors  of  this  new  praise  book  would  draw 
largely  on  the  similar  books  in  use  in  the  former 
Temple.  Further,  this  supposition  was  shown  to  be  a 
fact,  by  the  preservation,  either  in  the  inscriptions  or 


I  68     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

foot  notes,  of  the  names  of  many  of  the  sources  from 
which  they  have  drawn.  Chief  among  these  sources 
was  a  book  whose  very  name,  "  Sacred  Songs  of 
David,"  is  preserved  to  us  in  the  subscription  of  one 
of  the  Psalms. 

Taking  up  then  the  examination  of  this  Davidic 
Book,  we  saw  that  many  of  the  songs  borrowed  from 
it,  contain  such  musical  and  liturgical  notes,  as  to 
point  to  its  having  been  used  as  a  service  book  in  the 
older  Temple  worship.  We  then  stated  some  literary 
and  critical  canons  whose  proper  application  to  the 
study  of  this  collection  can  not  with  justice  be  dis- 
puted. These  seemed  to  show  us  that  the  collectors  of 
our  post-exilic  Psalter  drew  on  the  Davidic  collection 
much  in  the  same  way  that  hymn  collectors  of  the  pre- 
sent day  would  draw  on  any  older  collection  which 
was  accessible  to  them,  and  that  they  made  use  alone 
of  such  hymns  or  such  parts  of  hymns  as  were  suitable 
for  the  later  worship.  Consequently  it  is  not  probable 
that  our  Psalter  contains  more  than  a  selection  from 
the  Davidic  Book. 

We  saw  that  the  older  book  received  the  title 
Davidic,  from  the  usage,  so  common  in  the  Orient,  of 
naming  a  collection  from  the  one  who  inaugurates  it, 
or  whose  contributions  form  its  oldest  or  most  con- 
siderable part;  that  though  the  Davidic  authorship 
of  each  and  all  of  these  hymns  has  been  sharply  dis- 


THE  DA  VIDIC  BOOK.  \  69 

puted,  it  may  be  shown  on  grounds  as  reasonably- 
assuring  as  we  can  have  for  any  ancient  hterature,  that 
David  wrote  many,  perhaps  most  of  the  poems  that 
have  been  preserved  to  us  from  the  service-book 
which  bore  his  name.  On  the  ot4ier  hand,  we  saw 
that  a  number  of  the  poems  in  the  Davidic  Book  so 
clearly  belong  to  a  time  subsequent  to  David,  that  it 
cannot  have  lain  before  our  Psalter-collectors  in  the 
form  into  which  it  was  cast  by  him ;  that  they  pro- 
bably used  it  in  the  revised  and  enlarged  shape  given 
it  at  the  reorganization  of  the  Temple-service  in  the 
reign  of  Hezekiah,  and  to  this  last  view  we  showed 
there  could  be  no  objection,  as  we  possess  at  least  the 
Proverbs  in  the  shape  in  which  they  were  edited  by  a 
literary  commission  which  was  appointed  by  the  same 
king.^ 

I  believe  that  this  view  which  I  have  endeavored  to 
present  without  laying  stress  on  any  point  which  was 
not  evident  or  stretching  any  to  an  interpretation  it 
would  not  bear,  will  clear  up  for  many  of  you  the 
difficulties  which  can  not  but  have  presented  them- 
selves in  reading  the  Davidic  Psalms  contained  in  our 
Psalter.  It  satisfies  completely  the  demands  from  the 
literary  side  and  also  all  claims  which  can  be  made 
by  any  consistent  theory  of  inspiration.  But  even 
should  this  particular  explanation  not  be  convincing 

1  That  is,  a  part  of  our  present  book  of  Proverbs,  Prov.  xxv.-xxix.  (T.) 

8 


170     ORIGIN  AKD  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

or  adequate,  and  its  flaws  no  one  sees  more  clearly 
than  myself,  any  explanation  to  be  satisfactory  must 
lie  somewhere  in  this  line.  Bear  in  mind,  ere  you 
reject  it,  that  the  prevalent  extreme  conservative  view 
of  the  Davidic  Psalms  is  only  possible  by  a  disregard 
of  their  literary  form — the  radical  view  is  only  possi- 
ble by  a  denial  of  their  inspiration.  I  believe  that 
none  of  us  would  be  willing  to  take  either  horn  of 
this  dilemma. 

There  remains  now  that  we  have  finished  (satisfacto- 
rily or  unsatisfactorily)  the  discussion  of  the  literary 
form  in  which  the  Davidic  Psalms  are  preserved  to 
us,  still  another  point  for  consideration,  that  though 
without  exception  they  appear  in  liturgical  form 
and  in  a  service  book,  there  are  few  of  them  which 
were  originally  composed  with  this  object  in  view. 

Take  any  modern  hymn  collection  and  you  will 
see  that  none  of  its  grandest  hymns  were  written 
primarily  for  a  liturgical  purpose.  They  are  poems 
expressing  some  feeling  or  sentiment  which  renders 
them  suitable  to  be  used  in  worship ;  when  they 
come  to  be  adapted  to  a  liturgical  service,  it  is  fre- 
quently with  the  loss  of  much  of  the  beauty  of  the 
original  poem.  There  are  no  doubt  hymns  written 
for  use  in  the  service,  but  one  needs  not  a  poet's 
vision  to  discern  them.  They  betray  in  their  mea- 
sured form,  their  meagre  thought,  and  their  servile 


THE  DAVIDIC  BOOK.  I  71 

following  of  certain  standards  of  religious  expression 
common  to  their  time,  both  their  origin  and  design. 

The  highest  lyric  song  is  the  spontaneous  outpour- 
ing of  the  sentiment,  the  passion,  the  intuition  of  the 
moment,  and  has,  can  have,  no  end  in  view  outside  the 
utterance  of  itself  Do  you  imagine  that  the  mediaeval 
sin2"ers  could  have  written  their  hymns  which  have 
become  immortal,  for  the  liturgical  service  of  their 
church?  Does  not,  for  example,  Xavier's  "O  Deus 
ego  amo  te  "  bear  on  its  face  that  it  was  a  rapt  vision 
and  contemplation  of  some  solitary  singer  which  was 
first  at  a  later  day  taken  by  the  church  into  its  service 
because  it  seemed  so  fit  an  expression  of  the  feeling 
of  hearts  other  than  the  poet's  ?  Or  even  in  our  own 
time  was  not  the  tenderest  of  our  modern  religious 
lyrics, "  Lead,  kindly  light,"  the  overflow  of  expression 
of  the  troubled  soul  of  the  most  gifted  Englishman 
of  the  last  generation  ?  Do  any  of  you  imagine  that 
he  could  of  set  purpose  and  in  cold  blood  have 
composed  it  or  anything  like  it  for  a  liturgical  choral  ? 

In  our  study  of  the  Psalms  we  must  bear  the  same 
in  mind.  Could  David  have  written  the  nineteenth 
Psalm,  "  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God  and 
the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork,"  or  the  un- 
known author  of  the  one  hundred  and  fourth  Psalm 
have  framed  his  wonderful  poetical  cosmos  for  the  use 
of  the  Temple  choir  ?   If  you  compare  them  with  the 


172     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Psalms  written  for  purely  liturgical  use,  of  which  we 
have  abundance  in  our  Psalter,  you  can  not  hesitate 
with  an  answer. 

It  is  then  as  lyric  poetry,  the  immediate,  spontane- 
ous, unfettered  expression  of  the  feelings  which 
moved  the  minds  of  David  and  other  singers,  that 
most  of  the  songs  in  the  Davidic  Book  had  their 
origin.  He  who  compiled  this  Temple  song  book — 
be  it  David  or  Solomon,  or  Hezekiah — selected  and 
adapted  from  these  poems  such  as  seemed  suitable  for 
the  liturgical  service  of  the  Temple. 

We  have  however  now  pressed  our  hterary  inquiry 
almost  as  far  back  as  the  data  in  our  possession  will 
safely  carry  us.  For  the  most  part  we  have  these 
poems  preserved  to  us  alone  in  the  liturgical  form  in 
which  they  were  adapted  for  the  Temple  service,  and 
can  follow  them  no  further.  The  comparison  of 
Psalm  xviii.,  with  the  similar  poem  in  2  Sam.  xxii., 
which  might  occur  to  some  of  you  as  furnishing  a 
clue  for  this  investigation  is  for  several  reasons  of 
little  value.  The  most  important  of  them  is  that  the 
compilers  of  Samuel  who  lived  in  the  later  Jewish 
kingdom,  or  more  probably  at  the  beginning  of  the  re- 
stored State,  do  not  preserve  for  us  the  original  poem 
of  David,  but  have  borrowed  from  the  Davidic  Book 
precisely  the  same  Temple  song  of  which  the  compi- 
lers of  our  Psalter  have  made  use.    The  few  variances 


DAVID  AS  A  POET. 


173 


between  the  form  of  the  song  in  Samuel  and  that  in 
the  Psalms  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  state  in 
which,  through  the  carelessness  of  copyists  or  the 
abuse  and  neglect  of  the  rolls,  the  text  of  the  Books 
of  Samuel  has  come  down  to  us.  It  is  no  longer 
possible  unless  we  are  willing  to  make  use  of  the 
somewhat  two  edged  ''  restorative  criticism  "  so  popu- 
lar with  certain  French  scholars,  to  ascertain  to  what 
extent  the  Davidic  poems  have  been  abridged  or 
amended  to  fit  them  to  become  Temple  songs. 

That  all  the  Davidic  poetry  has  been  preserved  in 
the  Davidic  Psalms  would  be  improbable  from  the 
exclusively  religious  character  and  liturgical  design 
of  the  Temple  book,  and  is  conclusively  disproven  by 
the  fragments  of  David's  poetry  we  find  scattered 
through  the  historical  books.  No  doubt  he  soared  to 
his  loftiest  height  and  touched  his  sweetest  key  in  the 
religious  song,  but  it  is  a  loss  to  the  world's  imagina- 
tion that  the  secular  poetry  of  so  great  a  master  has 
perished.  Would  that  we  had  the  songs  that  the 
youthful  minstrel  sang  to  the  troubled  king  of  the  old 
heroes  of  the  people  and  the  wild  days  of  the  judges 
which  were  just  past;  his  idyls  of  shepherd  life,  some 
of  which,  preserved  in  his  Psalms,  are  painted  with 
more  skilful  touch  than  ever  Theocritus  or  Bion  pos- 
sessed ;  his  songs  of  love  and  the  dance,  to  both  of 
which  his  nature  inclined  him ;  his  war  ballads  from 


174     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

the  days  that  he  and  his  httle  company  of  moss- 
troopers hved  in  outlawry  along  the  Judean  border. 
David  as  a  poet  is  an  attractive  study,  but  we  have 
given  to  him,  his  Psalms,  and  his  Psalm-Book,  all 
the  spaee  that  we  can  in  justice  spare  in  so  brief  a 
course  of  lectures. 

Our  Psalter  collectors  drew  on  early  sources  for 
their  service  book,  other  than  the  "  Sacred  Songs  of 
David,"  and  to  consider  these  we  must  pass  in  the 
next  hour. 


LECTURE  VI. 


In  the  last  hour  we  endeavored  to  present  to  you 
the  ascertainable  facts  as  to  the  origin  and  time  of 
compilation  of  the  "  Davidic  Temple  Book  "  which  the 
Psalter  compilers  have  so  largely  drawn  on.  We 
now  must  pass  on  to  consider  some  new  problems  of 
interest  in  connection  with  our  Psalter. 

In  one  of  our  early  lectures  we  saw  that  the  present 
Psalter  is  made  up  of  five  distinct  books,  which  at  that 
time  I  strove  to  clearly  mark  out  for  you.  These  were 
not  collected  simultaneously  or  by  the  same  hand, 
but  at  intervals,  one  after  another,  during  several 
centuries  and  by  collectors  whose  literary  methods 
very  widely  vary.  We  have  since  seen  that  the  first 
book  was  taken  entirely  from  older  material,  being 
made  up  of  selections  from  the  "Sacred  Songs  of 
David " — a  hymn  book  used  in  the  service  of  the 
former  Temple,  in  regard  to  which  we  have  already 

175 


176     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

spoken  at  sufficient  length.  It  now  remains  but 
briefly  to  consider  when  and  by  whom  this  first  book 
was  collected — we  will  then  pass  on  to  the  second 
book. 

One  of  the  most  celebrated  books  ^  of  the  Orient,  if 
not  of  the  world,  begins  thus :  "  Moses  received  the  law 
from  Sinai  and  delivered  it  to  Joshua,  (and)  Joshua  to 
the  Elders,  (and)  the  Elders  to  the  Prophets,  and  the 
Prophets  to  the  men  of  the  Great  Synagogue."  Jew- 
ish myth  has  much  to  tell  us  of  this  great  Synagogue 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty  members  which  sat  as  the 
supreme  arbiter  of  morals  and  religion,  from  the 
return  from  the  Exile  until  about  the  time  of  Simeon 
the  Just.^  To  them  the  Jews  refer  the  collection  and 
editing  of  their  sacred  writings,  and  in  this  they  have 
been  followed  by  the  unanimity  of  tradition  in  the 
Christian  Church,  which  here  as  most  often  elsewhere, 
when  the  Old  Testament  is  concerned,  is  an  un- 
acknowledged loan  from  the  Jews.  When  we  examine 
the  earlier  Jewish  writings  we  find  the  accounts  given 
of  this  body  contradictory,  confused,  and  projected 

1  The  tract  of  the  Mishna  called  Pirke  Aboth,  ''  sections  of  the  fathers," 
that  is,  "  sayings  of  the  fathers,"  a  collection  of  apothegms  uttered  by  the 
great  rabbis,  beginning  with  Simeon  or  Simon  the  Just,  about  B.  C. 
300.     (T.) 

2  He  is  by  some  identified  with  Simon  I.,  B.  0.  310-291,  by  others 
with  Simon  II.,  B.  C.  221-202,  The  former  seems  the  more  probable 
date.     (T.) 


HISTORY  OF  THE  SYNAGOGUE.  I  77 

into  mythical  outline.  All  we  can  gather  is  that  there 
was  a  tradition  of  some  such  body  who,  in  the  dis- 
ordered times  succeeding  the  return  from  the  Exile, 
exercised  great  influence  in  reorganizing  the  worship 
and  collecting  and  setting  in  order  the  older  litera- 
ture. 

Cyrus'  motive  in  allowing  the  return  was  a  natural 
and  largely  political  one.  He  doubtless  regarded  it 
as  a  piece  of  astute  statecraft  to  secure  on  the  border 
of  Egypt  a  people  whose  gratitude  for  restoration  to 
.their  land  would  bind  them  firmly  to  the  Persian 
monarchy.  The  exulants  return  with  their  range 
of  political  and  religious  ideas  greatly  enlarged  by 
their  contact  with  the  administrative  system  and 
dualistic  faith  of  the  Persian. 

Here,  as  so  often  in  its  subsequent  history,  Israel 
showed,  with  all  its  wonderful  tenacity  in  holding  fast 
the  monotheistic  idea  which  has  been  its  mission  to 
the  world,  its  subtle  capacity  of  adapting  itself  to  the 
religions  and  civilizations  with  which  it  was  envi- 
roned. It  has  been  said  that  away  from  native  land 
and  Temple  the  exiles  would  naturally  have  met  from 
time  to  time,  perhaps  every  Sabbath  day,  for  reading 
the  law  or  one  of  the  prophetic  oracles,  and  then 
singing  some  of  the  old  Temple  melodies.  But  those 
who  hold  this  view  forget  how  the  very  idea  of  wor- 
ship in  the  older  Judaism  was  bound  up  with  an  ap- 


178     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

pearance  before  Jehovah  in  the  Temple,  or  at  some 
holy  shrine,  and  with  the  attendant  sacrifice  to  Him 
there.  We  find  no  trace  of  any  domestic  or  commu- 
nal worship  of  the  people  away  from  the  Temple  at 
any  period  previous  to  the  Exile.  Synagogue-wor- 
ship grew  up  during  the  Exile  under  the  influence  of 
the  Persians,  or  perhaps  one  might  phrase  it  better 
by  saying  that  the  idea  of  it  was  first  suggested  to  the 
Jews  through  their  contact  with  the  Persians,  whose 
worship  was  not  confined  as  that  of  the  Jews  had 
been  to  any  definite  place,  but  whose  custom  was, 
wherever  they  might  be,  to  come  together  at  fixed  in- 
tervals and  in  stated  places  to  read  their  sacred  books, 
to  repeat  the  ancient  prayers,  and  to  chant  their  reli- 
gious songs.  The  idea  germinated  in  fruitful  soil,  and 
the  synagogue,  foreign  to  the  original  genius  of  Juda- 
ism, and  only  as  a  late  exotic  transplanted  from  Par- 
seeism,  in  subsequent  centuries  became  the  distinctive 
feature  of  the  religion  of  Israel,  and  little  by  little  eli- 
minated from  it  all  necessity  of  the  Temple  worship. 
I  am  not,  however,  to  speak  to  you  at  present  of 
the  history  of  the  synagogue.  I  mention  it  alone  with 
the  purpose  of  calling  your  attention  to  the  new  prin- 
ciple which  was  introduced  into  the  Jewish  worship. 

In  the  prse-exilic  times  the  worship  was  ceremonial. 
There  had  been  collected  some  few  books  of  song  for 
the  liturgical  chanting  of  the  Temple  choirs,  but  be- 


THE  POST-EXILIC  COLLECTORS.  179 

yond  that  there  was  no  official  collection  of  their 
sacred  literature,  nor  was  there  need  of  any,  for  the 
reading  of  these  writings  did  not  form  a  stated  or 
usual  part  of  their  service.  With  the  growth,  subse- 
quent to  the  Exile,  of  the  synagogue  worship,  whose 
essence  was  not  ceremonial  but  social,  consisting 
chiefly  in  reading  from  their  sacred  literature,  there 
came  the  necessity  for  the  sake  of  order  and  unifor- 
mity that  this  hterature  should  be  collected,  edited 
with  an  assured  text,  and  arranged  in  a  consecutive 
and  convenient  form  by  some  body  whose  authority  in 
such  matters  would  be  recognized.  There  would  also 
speedily  arise  another  necessity  of  determining  what 
books  were  adapted  from  their  religious  character,  to  be 
read  with  edification  or  instruction  to  the  people  who 
gathered  in  these  assemblies,  and  this  could  alone  be 
decided  by  those  whose  position  in  the  theocracy  lent 
weight  and  authority  to  their  decisions. 

There  is  therefore  no  inherent  reason  for  refusing 
credence  to  the  Jewish  tradition  that  there  was  a 
body  of  scholars,  under  the  presidency  of  the  High 
Priest  in  connection  with  the  Temple  in  Jerusalem, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  adjudicate  on  these  questions. 
We  must  bear  in  mind  however,  that  our  present 
ideas  of  a  canonical  or  authoritative  collection  of  the 
Hebrew  writings  could  not  liave  been  that  of  these 
post-exilic   collectors.      Both   our    idea    and    name 


l8o     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

originated  under  Greek  influence  at  a  period  subse- 
quent to  our  era. 

The  technical  name  Canon  has  been  derived  from 
the  terminology  of  the  Greek  schools  and  gramma- 
rians of  Alexandria,  Canon  is  a  word  allied  to  our 
English  "cane,"  meaning  a  rod,  a  rule,  a  measure, 
and  hence  a  standard.  By  the  Alexandrian  gram- 
marians there  was  fixed  a  certain  standard  of  correct 
Greek  style.  All  writings  which  conformed  to  this 
were  called  by  them  canonical,  that  is  standard, 
or  as  we  should  now  say  classical.  For  example, 
yEschylus  was  said  to  be  a  canonical  writer,  and 
it  was  also  said  he  wrote  a  canonical  style,  pre- 
cisely in  the  sense  that  we  should  now  say  he  was  a 
classical  writer  and  wrote  a  classical  style.  No  doubt 
this  standard  of  style  was  first  fixed  for  literary  uses 
in  the  Alexandrian  schools  much  as  at  the  present  we 
establish  certain  standards  of  correct  and  elegant 
English,  and  those  writers  who  conform  to  it  we  call 
our  standard  or  classical  writers. 

The  name  does  not  come  until  late  into  ec- 
clesiastical nomenclature.  After  the  early  church 
councils  had  set  up,  whether  justly  or  unjustly 
it  is  no  part  of  these  lectures  to  inquire,  a  cer- 
tain standard  for  those  writings  which  might  be 
used  in  the  service,  there  came  gradually  into  use 
the    technical    term     of   the    Alexandrian    rhetori- 


FORMA  TION  OF  THE  CANON.  1 8 1 

cians — canonical — to  designate  all  writings  which 
conformed  to  this  standard.  If  I  mistake  not,  the 
name  canon,  as  an  ecclesiastical  term,  is  first  found 
in  one  of  the  "  Festal  Letters "  of  the  Alexandrian 
bishop  Athanasius  (373)/  a  man  whose  patient  en- 
durance of  persecution  and  whose  personal  beauty  of 
character,  far  more  than  his  doctrine,  should  have 
secured  him  the  title  of  Saint.  Consequently  when 
we  use  the  terms  canon  and  canonical  in  regard 
to  the  writings  of  Scripture,  we  can  only  mean — if  we 
attach  any  meaning  at  all  to  the  words — by  canon,  a 
regulative  standard  for  them,  set  up  by  some  body 
which  we  regard  as  authoritative — by  the  Canonical 
Books,  such  writings  as  conform  to  this  standard 
which  has  been  established.  The  meaning  given  in  a 
later  day  to  the  term  canonical  book,  as  one  which 
furnishes  men  with  a  standard  or  guide  of  life,  is 
foreign  alike  to  the  history  and  etymology  of  the 
word.  In  all  the  canonical  controversies  of  both  the 
earlier  and  later  time  it  has  been  generally  conceded 
that  the  history  of  the  word  is  as  I  have  just  sketched 
it,  and  the  conflict  has  turned  on  the  precise  nature 
of  the  canon  or  standard  which  the  Jewish  or  Chris- 
tian Fathers  established,  and  the  extent  of  the  autho- 
rity inhering  in  it. 

*  Athanasius  uses  the  term  "  canonized  "  Csgth  Festal  Epistle),  which 
supposes  the  word  "  canon ;"  but  it  probably  occurs  earlier  than  this.  (T.) 


1 82      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Essential  as  would  be  the  investigation  and  discus- 
sion of  the  Canon,  were  we  studying  the  final  form 
which  the  writings  have  assumed,  you  perceive  that 
of  necessity  it  cannot  be  a  factor  in  the  present  inves- 
tigation into  the  method  in  which  the  earlier  Jewish 
collectors  brought  together,  arranged  and  edited  the 
Hebrew  literature  during  the  century  succeeding  the 
Exile.  Not  until  many  centuries  after  their  time  did 
there  grow  up  any  fixed  canon  or  standard  as  we  now 
understand  it.  Of  course  the  collectors  must  have 
had  some  standard  in  their  work,  but  we  can  alone 
ascertain  what  this  was  by  an  examination  of  the 
literature  which  they  have  collected. 

A  careful  study  of  the  literature  which  passed 
through  their  hands,  and  of  the  way  in  which  they 
edited  it,  makes  several  things  apparent  as  to  the 
design  and  method  of  their  collection  which  I  can  but 
summarize  in  a  few  words,  for  an  adequate  develop- 
ment of  it  would  lead  us  too  far  away  from  the  main 
point  which  these  lectures  have  in  view. 

It  is  clear  that  the  chief  motive  of  the  collectors, 
perhaps  primarily  the  sole  motive,  was  to  prepare  for 
the  various  synagogues,  a  standard  book  of  sacred 
literature  for  use  in  their  service.  The  nature  of  the 
collection  was  determined  by  the  necessity  of  the 
synagogue  worship.  That  the  collectors  had  no 
design  of  gathering  all  the  sacred  literature  of  the 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CANON.  183 

Jewish  people  may  be  made  evident  by  the  constant 
reference  in  the  books  which  have  been  preserved  to 
a  sacred  hterature,  well  known  and  current  in  their 
day,  which  they  made  no  effort  to  bring  into  their 
collection.  For  example  we  have  the  titles  preserved 
of  "  The  Inspiration  of  Ahijah,"  and  "  The  Vision  of 
Iddo  the  Prophet,"  (2  Chron.  ix.  29)  both  men  whose 
divine  sending  and  message  are  familiar  to  us  from 
the  historical  books.  For  some  reason  unknown  to 
us  the  collectors  did  not  deem  them  suitable  for  read- 
ing in  the  assemblies  of  the  people,  so  have  not  made 
use  of  them.  I  do  not  know  how  I  can  make  the  na- 
ture of  their  collection  clearer  to  you  than  by  saying 
it  was  a  Lesson  Book,  not  unlike  that  prepared  for 
the  English  Church  service  by  a  commission  of  the 
Anglican  clergy.  It"  did  not  contain  all  the  sacred 
literature  of  the  Jews,  but  only  so  much  of  it  as  they 
considered  of  edification  to  the  people. 

Had  we  space  to  speak  to  you  of  the  gradual 
growth  of  the  collection,  of  the  Jews  of  the  Disper- 
sion, who,  passing  from  the  ecclesiastical  authority  of 
this  board,  read  in  their  worship  many  books  which 
it  refused  to  permit  to  be  read  in  the  synagogues 
under  its  control ;  of  the  bitter  discussions  in  this 
body  itself  attendant  on  the  endeavor  made  by  many 
of  its  members  in  the  first  century  before  our  era  to 
withdraw  authority  from  Ezekiel,  and  the  even  hotter 


184     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

debate  which  preceded  the  hcensing  of  the  reading  of 
Ecclesiastes  and  the  Song  of  Solomon  in  the  century- 
subsequent  to  our  era,  there  would  be  manifest  to 
you  the  whole  point  we  wish  to  make,  namely,  that 
there  was  a  board  of  scholars  and  ecclesiastics  con- 
nected with  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem  to  whose  hands 
was  committed  the  care  for  the  order  and  uniformity 
of  the  worship  after  the  Exile.  Should  we  para- 
phrase the  original  name  of  this  body  into  our  mod- 
ern parlance,  we  might  with  justice  call  it  a  "board 
of  public  worship."  Among  their  numerous  labors 
was  the  preparation  of  a  book  of  selections  from  the 
older  sacred  literature  for  uniform  use  in  the  service 
of  the  synagogues.  This  book  they  arranged  in  ap- 
propriate weekly  lessons  or  sections  which  are  stilt- 
preserved  to  us  in  the  original  text.  It  would  further 
be  evident  that  subsequent  to  their  first  collection 
they  added,  from  time  to  time,  several  books  which 
seemed  suitable  for  use  in  the  service,  and  that 
not  until  the  meeting  of  the  doctors  of  the  San- 
hedrin  held  at  Jabne  in  the  year  118,  a.  d.,  was  it 
finally  determined  that  the  collection  be  regarded 
as  definitely  closed,  and  no  additions  to  or  sub- 
tractions from  it  should  be  made  for  all  future  time.^ 

*  The  date  of  this  Sanhedrin  is  in  dispute,  but  it  was  certainly  after  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  ;  it  is  spoken  of  in  the  Talmud-tract  Yadayim 
V.  3,  where  the  discussions  on  Ecclesiastes  and  the  Song  of  Songs  are 


FORMATION  OF  THE  CANON.  185 

The  Protestant  Bibles,  as  a  rule,  contain  the  Old 
Tesfanrient  in  the  form  determined  on  by  the  council 
at  Jabne,  while  the  Bibles  of  the  old  Greek  and  Latin 
Churches  are  based  on  the  old  Greek  or  Septuagint 
version,  and  contain  a  number  of  books  read  in  the 
synagogue  at  Alexandria,  which  were  not  allowed  l?y 
the  Jerusalem  board  or  commission  to  be  used  in  the 
synagogues  which  were  under  their  immediate  juris- 
diction. 

I  imagine  the  bearing  of  this  somewhat  lengthy 
prologue  will  be  evident  to  you  all,  for  it  would  have 
been  impossible  for  us  to  follow  the  collection  of  our 
Psalter,  unless  we  had  first  learned  somewhat  of  the 
methods  through  which  it,  with  the  other  books, 
came  into  the  collection  of  Hebrew  literature  which 
we  have  preserved  to  us.  At  some  future  time  I 
may  be  able  to  present  to  you  this  whole  subject 
more  fully  and  consequently  more  satisfactorily. 

The  action  of  this  body,  so  famous  in  history,  pro- 
bably alone  had  influence  on  the  final  shaping  of  our 
Psalter  out  of  the  five  Temple  books  from  which  it 
was  made-up.  At  all  events,  the  collection  of  its  First 

mentioned.  It  seems,  however,  that  sometime  after  this  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Canon  was  to  some  extent  in  a  fluid  condition  ;  we  find,  for  ex- 
ample, that  in  the  fourth  century  the  Jews  are  spoken  of  as  reading 
Baruch  in  their  public  religious  gatherings  (Apostolical  Constitutions,  v. 
20).     (T.) 


I  86     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Book  (iii.-xli.)  must  be  assigned  to  a  period  prior  to 
any  in  which  we  can  suppose  such  a  body  as  the  great 
synagogue  to  have  been  in  existence — to  a  period 
contemporaneous  with  the  first  return  fi-om  the  Exile 
under  Joshua  and  Zerubbabel.  One  gains  the  impres- 
sion in  reading  of  this  first  return  that  its  object  was 
not  so  much  for  general  colonization  and  resettlement 
as  for  the  more  specific  purpose  of  rebuilding  Jerusalem 
and  restoring  the  Temple.  In  the  list  of  those  who  re- 
turned we  find  no  less  than  five  thousand,  or  a  sixth 
of  the  entire  number  belonging  to  the  Temple  staff, 
either  as  Priests,  Levites,  Singers,  Porters  or  Nethi- 
nim,  in  which  latter  some  of  the  expositors  of  the  La- 
tin church  see  a  monkish  order,  but  which  were,  as 
the  name  suggests,  merely  the  Temple  slaves  on 
whom  fell  the  menial  and  unclean  service  which  no 
Israelite  would  willingly  undertake. 

Though  they  thus  return  with  all  their  plans  ma- 
tured for  the  restoration  of  the  Temple,  unseen  difficul- 
ties immediately  arose  and  their  main  object  remained 
for  many  years  unattainable.  The  Samaritans,  angered 
by  the  refusal  of  their  proffered  qo-operation  in  the 
rebuilding  of  the  Temple,  make  such  effectual  repre- 
sentations through  their  attorneys  at  the  Persian 
court  as  to  the  disloyalty  of  the  Jews,  that  the  prose- 
cution of  the  work  is  forbidden  by  the  authorities.  It 
was  an  evil  time  for  the  returned  Exiles,  held  under 


FIRST  BOOK  OF  THE  PSALTER.  187 

suspicion  by  the  Persian  officials — dissension  and  dis- 
cord among  themselves,  blight  and  famine  in  the  land. 
But  I  will  not  draw  the  picture  which  lies  sketched 
in  outline  for  you  in  the  concise  and  nervous  sen- 
tences of  Haggai.  Suffice  to  say,  that  during  fifteen 
years  they  could  not  lay  their  hand  to  the  work. 
Thanks  to  the  enthusiastic  patriotism  of  the  prophets, 
Haggai  and  Zechariah,  the  people  and  their  leaders 
are  at  last  moved  to  make  one  more  appeal  to  the 
Persian  court,  which  receives  a  favorable  reply.  The 
work  of  rebuilding  begun  in  earnest  is  eagerly  pushed 
forward,  and  within  four  years  a  modest  Temple  is 
completed  and  dedicated,  B.C.  516,  sixty  years  before 
the  arrival  of  Ezra  and  the  later  colonists. 

Now  in  all  probability  it  was  for  the  restored  service 
of  this  Temple  that  the  First  Book  in  our  Psalter  was 
compiled  by  some  one  of  the  early  return.  Whether 
by  Joshua,  who  we  glean  from  Zechariah  was  a  man  of 
varied  parts,  of  course  we  do  not  know.  As  we  have 
seen,  the  collector,  whoever  he  may  have  been,  ga- 
thered about  forty  of  the  choicer  and  more  familiar 
melodies  from  one  of  the  books  of  the  early  Temple — 
"The  Sacred  Songs  of  David."  As  a  careful  editor  he 
gives  to  each  song  an  inscription,  showing  the  source 
from  which  he  had  taken  it;  moreover  to  several 
of  the  more  noteworthy  of  them  he  adds  a  note,  stat- 
ing the  occasion  on  which  it  was  composed  or  the 


1 88     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

circumstances  which  gave  rise  to  it.  In  some  few 
cases  these  notices  are  taken  from  the  historical  books 
which  we  still  have,  but  more  frequently  from  the 
current  belief  of  the  time  as  to  the  origin  of  the  Psalm. 

Psalm  iii.,  first  of  an  exquisite  pair  of  morn  and 
even  songs  placed  at  the  opening  of  the  book,  is 
accompanied  by  the  notice  that  it  was  written  on 
David's  flight  from  his  son  Absalom. 

Psalm  vii.,  whose  pathetic  and  broken  rhythm 
accords  well  with  the  wild  melody  to  which  it  was 
set  by  the  Temple  choir,  has  a  note  by  the  editor  that 
it  was  written  by  David  as  he  learned  of  the  words 
spoken  against  him  by  a  certain  man  named  Cush  of 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin.  Who  this  Cush  was  we  do 
not  know.  His  name  is  nowhere  else  mentioned,  and 
the  editor  evidently  has  taken  his  notice  from  some 
writing  which  has  not  come  down  to  us.  He  proba- 
bly was  David's  enemy  at  the  court  who  succeeded 
in  poisoning  Saul's  mind  with  stories  of  his  disaffec- 
tion. A  number  of  the  modern  translators  have 
made  sad  work  of  this  inscription  through  a  misun- 
derstanding of  Cush  as  a  common  instead  of  a 
proper  noun.  Luther  actually  has  "  a  Benjamite 
colored  man,"  anticipating  by  several  centuries  the 
black  Jews  of  Abyssinia,  and  not  a  few  translate  "the 
black  Benjamite  "  with  a  metaphrastic  reference  to 
the  black-hearted  Saul. 


FIRS T  BOOK  OF  THE  PSA L  TER.  1 8 9 

Psalm  xviii.  is  the  longest  of  the  purely  lyric  songs 
in  the  collection.  It  is  shown  to  be  beyond  question 
Davidic  by  its  appearance  in  the  account  of  David's 
life  in  the  historical  books.  The  theophany  in  the 
opening  lines  and  an  occasional  turn  of  the  verse 
betray  the  master's  hand,  but  the  style  is  on  the 
whole  so  broad  and  repetitious  that  it  betrays  as  well 
a  hand  touched  with  the  palsy  of  age.  The  editor 
tells  us  in  his  note  that  it  was  written  by  David  at  the 
close  of  his  life  when  he  had  been  delivered  and  given 
rest  from  all  his  enemies. 

Psalm  XXX.  was  fixed  by  the  Jewish  ritual  to  be 
read  on  the  feast  of  Haniika,  or  Dedication,  that  is, 
the  re-dedication  of  the  Temple  after  it  had  been  de- 
filed by  the  Syrian  troops  of  Antiochus.  The  form 
of  inscription  in  the  English  version,  "at  the  dedica- 
tion of  the  house  of  David,"  conveys  the  wrong  im- 
pression that  this  was  the  occasion  of  the  composition 
of  the  song.^  It  belongs  however  to  the  purely  liturgi- 
cal notes,  found  in  such  abundance  in  the  Psalter  as 
to  have  led  many  scholars  to  imagine  that  our  manu- 
scripts of  this  book  are  based  on  the  musically  anno- 
tated copy  of  some  one  of  the  Temple  choir,  and 
states  no  more  than  that  this  Psalm  was  to  be  sung 
on  the  Feast  of  Dedication. 

We  should  think  much  less  of  David's  poetical  ge- 
nius could  we  believe  he  wrote  Psalm  xxxiv.,  an  al- 


190     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

phabetic  poem  bearing  the  strongest  marks  of  the 
lamp  and  artificiality  of  treatment,  the  metre  by  con- 
stant straining  and  the  use  of  obsolete  words  being 
forced  to  so  come  out  that  each  succeeding  verse  may 
begin  with  a  new  letter  of  the  alphabet.  But  to  crown 
all,  there  seems  to  be  an  acrostic  in  the  last  line, 
through  which  the  author  discloses  himself  as  a  cer- 
tain Pedaiah  (nna).  In  all  events  there  is  a  prima  facie 
case  against  the  correctness  of  the  editorial  inscrip- 
tion, that  it  was  written  by  David  when  to  escape 
from  Achish,  king  of  Gath,  he  was  obliged  to  feign 
insanity,  an  affliction  which  in  the  Orient  from  the 
earliest  time  until  the  present  has  been  regarded  as  a 
direct  visitation  from  God,  and  secured  not  only  im- 
munity but  even  consideration  for  the  afflicted  one. 
It  is  a  beautiful  principle,  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  the 
regulations  for  the  treatment  of  the  insane  in  modern 
Arab  jurisprudence,  that  the  mind  of  one  who  is  in- 
sane is  in  heaven,  and  so  engaged  in  immediate  con- 
verse with  the  Deity  that  it  can  give  no  attention  to 
the  body  which  is  on  earth.  Most  scholars,  even 
many  whose  convictions  would  lead  them  to  do  so 
unwillingly,  have  been  forced  to  admit  that  in  the 
case  of  Psalm  xxxiv.,  the  editor  is  clearly  wrong  in 
his  note  as  to  the  occasion  on  which  it  was  composed. 
The  only  remaining  editorial  inscription  in  this 
book  is  that  to  Psalm  xxxviii.,  of  which  I  spoke  in  the 


FIRS T  BOOK  OF  THE  PSAL  TER.  I  9 1 

last  hour.  The  form  of  it  in  our  EngHsh  version  "to 
bring  to  remembrance  "  is  senseless.  The  song,  as  the 
inscription  really  informs  us,  is  a  choral  refrain  sung  by 
the  officiating  priests  at  the  kindling  of  the  incense. 

The  other  inscriptions  of  this  book  are  without 
exception  musical,  and  come  from  the  chief  musician 
or  some  of  his  assistants  in  the  Temple  choir.  They 
will  all  be  considered  in  their  proper  place. 

There  is  but  one  more  question  of  literary  interest 
as  to  this  First  Book,  and  that  is  as  to  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  songs  in  it.  The  Shemitic  mind,  which 
so  dwells  on  minutiae,  very  naturally  sets  great  store 
by  the  formal  arrangement  of  its  literary  material. 
Take  up  any  of  the  poets  of  the  famed  cycle  of  the 
Moallakat,  which  stands  for  Arab  literature  much  as 
the  Nibelungen  or  the  Round  Table  of  good  King 
Arthur  does  for  us — or  any  of  the  later  poets,  as  Mu- 
tanabbi,  the  Arab  Spenser,  or  Hariri,  the  Arab 
Cervantes,  and  you  will  find  that  their  poems  have 
been,  without  regard  to  their  subject  or  history,  cast 
by  the  editors  into  what  are  called  Divans — that  is 
certain  rubrics  where  all  poems  of  similar  metre  or 
assonance  are  collected  under  the  same  head.  To 
gain  this  purely  formal,  almost  tabular  arrangement, 
the  editors  have  not  hesitated  to  unite  or  sever  many 
poems  in  utter  defiance  of  those  literary  relations 
which  would  form  the  main  evidence  for  any  Aryan 


192     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

editor.  Further  study  shows  this  to  be  a  common 
Shemitic  method  of  editing,  and  not  a  few  scholars 
have  imagined  they  could  trace  a  similar  metrical 
arrangement  in  the  several  books  of  the  Psalm  collec- 
tion! Though  there  are  some  few  resemblances  of 
metre  between  adjacent  Psalms,  such  as  might  be, 
were  there  necessity,  construed  as  an  argument  for 
this  view,  they  are  so  sporadic  as  probably  to  be  only 
accidental,  and  do  not  furnish  sufficient  ground  for 
predicating  any  general  principle  of  arrangement  of 
any  one  of  the  five  collections  in  our  Psalter.  What 
principle  of  arranging  his  material  the  collector  of  the 
first  book,  or  of  any  of  the  books  had,  we  no  longer 
know — possibly  they  had  none  at  all.  It  does  not 
seem  to  be  the  metrical  one,  elsewhere  so  common 
among  the  Shemitic  people ;  nor  is  there  any  dis- 
coverable arrangement  by  author  or  subject  or  age, 
such  as  we  are  more  familiar  with.  The  elaborate 
arrangements  in  many  modern  commentaries  are  no 
more  than  a  reflex  of  the  subjective  impression  of  the 
commentator. 

The  Second  Book  of  our  Psalter  is  somewhat  small- 
er than  the  first,  and  contains  the  thirty  songs  which 
in  our  version  are  numbered  from  xlii.-lxxii.,  inclu- 
sive. The  method  of  the  collector  is  more  eclectic 
than  that  of  the  one  who  collected  the  first  book,  and 
he  draws  on  sources  other  than  the  Davidic  Songs. 


SONG  BOOK  OF  THE  SONS  OF  KORAH.         193 

The  most  characteristic  songs  in  his  collection  are  the 
seven  he  has  taken  from  the  "  Song  Book  of  the  Sons 
of  Korah,"  from  which  same  source  the  collector  of 
the  third  book  has  borrowed  three.  These  sonjjs 
from  the  Korahite  book  are  the  most  exquisite 
poetry  preserved  to  us,  not  only  in  the  Psalter,  but 
any  where  in  Hebrew  literature.  They  exhibit  a 
daintiness  of  workmanship  and  delicate  sensibility  of 
the  niceties  of  metre  which  place  them  side  by  side 
with  the  lyrics  of  Pindar  or  Horace.  If  the  highest 
art  reside  in  form  rather  than  idea,  as  the  latter  day 
critics  are  now  teaching  the  world,  there  are  prob- 
ably few  literatures  which  offer  such  models  of  pure 
art  as  we  find  in  one  or  two  of  these  poems.  The 
reserve  of  the  poet  in  conscious  power  over  his 
material,  the  delicate  touch,  the  keen  sense  of  the 
beauty  of  mere  form,  the  plastic  skill  which  repro- 
duces in  word  the  many-voiced  utterances  of  nature, 
the  evident  love  of  the  beautiful  for  its  mere  beauty, 
remind  us  of  the  very  best  of  Greek  art.  It  is  so 
un-Hebraic,  so  un-Shemitic,  that  one  is  constantly 
surprised  in  reading  these  poems  with  the  artist's 
technique.  Were  there  a  score  of  poems  like  the 
forty-second  Psalm,  the  history  of  Shemitic  art  would 
have  to  be  re-written,  and  the  student  of  style  would 
have  to  learn  of  the  Hebrew,  rather  than  the  Hellen. 
These  songs  represent  a  poetry  of  culture  which 
9 


194 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


finds  its  end  in  a  perfect  and  artistic  expression  of  it- 
self They  lack  the  originality,  the  breadth,  the  natu- 
ralness of  David's  poetry.  There  is  no  such  intuition 
of  nature,  no  struggling  of  the  thought  seeking  utter- 
ance in  words,  no  painting  in  grand  relief  such  as  we 
ever  find  in  the  work  of  the  master.  The  art  is  deli- 
cate, elaborated,  subtle — in  a  word  it  is  art,  not 
nature.  I  have  no  adequate  parallel  in  mind  from  our 
modern  verse — perhaps  if  a  comparison  at  a  remove 
were  not  unfair,  I  would  say  somewhat  as  the  dainty 
and  cameo-like  Canzone  of  Petrarch,  as  compared 
with  the  Divina  Commedia,  or  in  our  own  time  and 
speech,  as  Swinburne's  elaborate  and  elegant  form 
might  be  compared  with  the  breadth  and  originality 
of  the  Poet  Laureate. 

But  we  must  see  who  these  Sons  of  Korah  were. 
Korah,  the  son  of  Izhar,  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  is  known 
to  you  through  the  revolt  inaugurated  by  him  against 
the  authority  of  Moses  and  Aaron.  His  own  motive 
seems  to  have  been  personal  ambition  or  jealousy  at 
seeing  another  house  of  his  tribe  preferred  before  his 
own.  His  movement,  however,  did  not  gain  weight 
or  become  dangerous  until  it  was  joined  by  the 
influential  chiefs  of  the  tribe  of  Reuben,  Dathan  and 
Abiram,  who  were  smarting  under  the  inferior  role 
which  their  tribe,  the  first-born  to  whom  of  right 
belonged    the     leadership,    were    obliged    to    play. 


THE  SONS  OF  KORAH. 


195 


They  take  their  stand  on  ground  which  to  any 
Bedouin  Shemitic  people,  and  above  all  to  the  Israel- 
ites, would  have  great  weight;  that  the  office  of 
priesthood  and  right  of  sacrifice  could  not  be  dele- 
gated to  any  particular  class  of  the  community,  but  of 
necessity  belonged  to  the  father  or  head  of  each  house 
for  his  own  family.  They  carry  a  large  number, 
apparently  a  large  majority  of  the  community  with 
them,  but  rashly  submitting  their  claims  to  the  test  of 
an  ordeal  by  fire,  not  unlike  that  in  the  middle  ages, 
they  are  defeated  and  destroyed  in  the  manner  you 
well  know.  The  narrative,  which  not  many  verses 
further  on  states  in  plain  terms  that  "  the  children  of 
Korah  were  not  destroyed,"  (Numbers  xxvi.,  1 1)  seems 
to  imply  that  none  perished  save  those  who  attempted 
the  ordeal  by  fire.  However  this  may  be,  no  attain- 
der seems  to  have  attached  to  Korah's  descendants — 
Samuel  the  prophet  and  reformer  was  of  their  lineage, 
and  at  the  time  of  Saul  they  were  a  numerous  and 
influential  clan.  They  came  armed  to  the  support  of 
David's  feeble  fortunes  when  at  Ziklag,  and  until  the 
end  of  the  monarchy  remain  the  devoted  adherents  of 
the  Davidic  dynasty.  David  rewards  their  fidelity  by 
assigning  them  a  prominent  position  in  the  Temple 
service.  They  are  frequently  spoken  of  in  the  histor- 
ical books  as  being  custodians  of  the  Temple,  but  their 
position,  which  now  alone  concerns  us,  was  as  forming 


196     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

a  part  of  the  Temple  choir  and  orchestra.  From  the 
very  necessity  of  their  duties  they  would  receive  the 
best  musical  culture  of  their  time.  The  musical  art 
being  thus  their  profession,  we  can  the  better  under- 
stand the  evident  pains  taken  by  them  in  perfecting 
the  technical  detail  of  their  songs. 

They  seem  to  have  had  a  book  of  their  own,  whose 
full  title  we  are  not  so  fortunate  as  to  possess,  but 
which  was  called,  doubtless,  by  some  familiar  title,  as 
"  The  Songs,  or  Lyrics  of  the  Sons  of  Korah." 
Whether  this  was  a  Temple  book  like  the  "  Davidic 
Book,"  collected  from  various  sources  and  adapted  to 
the  use  of  the  choir  by  the  Korahites,  or  whether  it 
was  a  book  containing  no  more  than  songs  by  the 
members  of  their  own  singer  family,  scholars  are 
still  not  clear,  and  probably  never  will  be,  a5  there 
are  not  sufficient  data  in  our  hands  to  reach  a  sure 
conclusion.  The  ten  songs  preserved  by  our  Psalter 
bear  traces  of  so  kindred  an  artistic  tradition  and 
poetical  method,  that  it  seems  more  probable  that  the 
"  Book  of  the  Sons  of  Korah  "  was  a  book  contain- 
ing only  songs  by  members  of  this  family. 

As  in  the  "  Davidic  Book,"  no  mention  is  made  of 
the  authors  of  the  separate  poems,  the  inscription  of 
the  editor  stating  no  more  than  the  collection  from 
which  the  song  was  taken.  We  are,  in  every  case,  re- 
ferred back  to  the  song  itself  for  all  information  as  to 


THE  KORAHITE  SONGS.  I97 

age  and  authorship.    Let  us  glance  hastily  through  the 
few  songs  taken  from  this  older  Korahite  collection. 

The  first  of  them  is  Psalm  xlii.,  or  rather  xlii.-xliii., 
for  Psalm  xliii.  is  clearly  the  final  strophe  of  Psalmxlii., 
which  has  only  been  separated  from  it  by  the  blunder 
of  some  copyist.  The  union  of  the  two  Psalms  is 
shown  to  be  necessary  by  the  forty-second's  remain- 
ing incomplete  and  fragmentary  without  the  addition 
of  the  forty-third — it  is  shown  to  be  a  fact  by  their 
being  found  as  one  Psalm  in  all  the  older  and  better 
manuscripts. 

The  singer  is  in  exile  or  captivity  among  heathen 
enemies  to  whom  his  religion  is  a  source  of  mocking. 
The  situation  is  in  the  outlying  spurs  of  Anti-Leb- 
anon.    He  hears  the  Jordan  gush  seething  from  its 
fountain  heads  at  Baneas  and  dash  roaring  down  its 
rocky  defile,  cataract  calling  to  cataract,  on  its  way 
toward  Merom.     He  sees  the  sunny  dome  of  Her- 
mon  rising  before  him,  but  deems  it  of  less  beauty 
than  the  little  hill  of  Zion,  where  rises  the  city  and 
Temple  of  his  affection.     He  is  one  of  the  Temple 
singers,  who  recalls  with  fondest  recollection  the  time 
when  among  his  brethren  he  had  led  with  music  and 
song  the  festal  procession  into  the  holy  place.    When 
the  Psalm  was  written  we  cannot  say,  but  it  must 
have  been  long  after  the  establishment  of  the  Temple 
and  its  worship.     If  we  accept  any  hypothesis  at  all 


198     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

that  of  Vaihinger  is  the  more  probable,  that  its  author 
was  one  of  the  Levites  banished  by  the  usurper 
AthaHah.  Ewald  draws  a  picturesque  sketch  of 
King  Jechoniah  as  its  author.  On  his  way  as  prisoner 
to  Babylon  he  passes  a  night  in  the  royal  burg  at 
Baneas;  unable  to  sleep  and  scared  by  visions  he  rises 
and  paces  by  moonlight  the  battlement  of  the  castle, 
in  full  view  of  Hermon  and  the  Jordan  valley.  It  is 
a  beautiful  picture  which  Ewald  sketches,  but  one 
may  doubt  if  it  would  have  occurred  to  him  had  he 
not  read  of  Hamlet  and  the  battlement  of  Elsinore. 
Whoever  wrote  the  Psalm,  it  marks  the  highest  at- 
tainment of  the  lyric  art  among  the  Shemitic  people 
— some  say  among  any  people.  The  balance  of  the 
rhythm,  the  exquisite  poise  of  the  sentences,  the 
minute  and  dainty  touch  in  the  setting  of  the  words, 
give  to  the  song  an  almost  indescribable  beauty. 
There  lies  hid  under  the  general  name,  "Sons  of 
Korah,"  an  artist  whose  name  should  be  inscribed  on 
the  roll  of  the  world's  literature  as  chief  among  the 
masters  of  pure  form. 

We  have  already  seen  that  Psalm  xliv.  was  one  of 
those  whose  composition  has  been  referred  to  the 
Maccabean  era.  Those  who  hold  this  view  say  it 
was  written  after  the  defeat  of  Joseph  and  Azariah  by 
the  Syrian  mercenaries  at  the  Valley  of  Jackals,  near 
Jamnia.     We   have   no   right   to    refuse  to  consider 


THE  KORAHITE  SONGS. 


199 


this,  as  many  have  done,  for  the  chief  lament  of  the 
singer  is  over  some  defeat  of  the  Jewish  armies  at 
this  very  place  which  he  mentions  by  name  in  the 
nineteenth  verse.  Reasons  we  have  before  endeavored 
to  make  plain  to  you,  create  so  strong  a  presumption 
against  all  Maccabean  Psalms,  that  it  seems  pre- 
ferable to  refer  its  composition  to  the  time  of  the 
invasion  of  Judah  and  the  pillage  of  Jerusalem  by  the 
allied  armies  of  the  Philistines  and  Arabs  in  the  reign 
of  Jehoram,  toward  the  close  of  the  ninth  century,  or 
to  the  troubled  years  which  immediately  preceded 
the  Exile.  The  Psalm  is  so  impersonal  in  treatment 
that  it  offers  no  clue  as  to  who  the  singer  was.  It  is 
written  in  evil  days,  when  the  Jewish  armies  have 
just  suffered  a  disastrous  defeat.  The  city  and  Tem- 
ple lie  open  to  the  enemy,  and  unless  Jehovah  perso- 
nally help,  utter  ruin  seems  to  stare  his  religion  and 
country  in  the  face.  The  song  is  elegiac  in  charac- 
ter, and  does  not  lack  strong  touches,  as  the  appeal 
in  the  twenty-third  verse,  "  Awake !  why  slumberest 
Thou,  O  Jehovah  ?  "  but  taking  it  for  all  in  all,  it  is 
the  weakest  of  the  songs  in  the  Korahite  book. 
There  runs  through  it  also  a  vein  of  quid  pro  qjio 
ethics,  to  say  the  least,  foreign  to  the  feelings  of  one 
who  has  learned  that  man  in  his  very  best  estate 
can  neither  deserve  nor  lay  claim  to  anything  from 
Divinity. 


200     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Psalm  xlv.  is  unique  in  more  senses  than  one.  As 
the  inscription  informs  us,  it  is  a  marriage  song  or 
Epithalamium.  Primarily,  it  is  a  personal  and  secu- 
lar song,  whose  reception  in  the  Psalter  can  only  be 
explained  by  the  later  and  secondary  spiritual  refer- 
ence of  it,  which  of  course  does  not  concern  us  now. 
It  is  a  marriage  song,  written  for  the  nuptials  of  some 
king  of  Judah  with  a  princess  of  Tyrian  descent. 
Some  few  have  referred  it  to  the  marriage  of  Solomon 
with  a  daughter  of  Hiram.  It  seems  more  probable 
that  the  occasion  of  it  was  the  festivities  which 
accompanied  Joram's  bringing  his  Israelitic  bride 
home  to  Jerusalem.  Joram  was  married  in  the  reign 
of  his  father  Jehoshaphat,  of  which  we  spoke  to  you  in 
the  last  lecture  as  not  unlike  the  Solomonic  in  the 
splendor  of  the  court  and  the  prosperity  of  the  state. 
It  is  true  that  Joram's  vanity  and  headstrong  obsti- 
nacy lost  all  his  father  had  acquired,  and  involved  his 
state  in  war  and  disaster,  but  he  started  life  with  the 
fairest  promise,  and  amid  the  blessings  of  all  his  sub- 
jects. The  Psalm  is  evidently  composed  for  a  choral, 
in  which  without  difficulty  the  parts  may  be  traced. 
Those  may  not  have  been  far  from  right  who  suppose 
it  to  have  been  the  song  of  greeting  sung  by  the  Tem- 
ple choirs  on  the  entry  of  the  bridal  pair  into  their 
capital.  Who  the  poet  was  we  do  not  know.  From 
the  paternal  tone  of  his  advice  we  may  assume  him  to 


THE  KORAHITE  SONGS.  20I 

have  been  an  aged  man ;  from  the  way  he  speaks  of 
the  king  some  have  imagined  that  he  was  his  tutor, 
though  this  of  course  is  no  more  than  supposition. 
The  song  is  admirably  adapted  to  the  purpose  for 
which  it  was  composed,  and  is  by  far  the  best  choral 
in  the  Psalter.  From  its  very  nature  we  do  not  ex- 
pect delicacy  of  work,  such  as  we  find  in  Psalm 
xlii.,  but  though  drawn  with  broader  lines  it  does  not 
lack,  in  brilliant  color  and  the  quick  swing  of  the 
measure,  many  peculiar  beauties  of  its  own.  For 
pureness  and  elevation  of  thought  and  style  no  mar- 
riage song  has  come  down  to  us  from  classical 
antiquity  comparable  to  it.  Our  King  James  transla- 
tion is  rarely  less  fortunate  than  in  rendering  this 
song,  and  the  English  reader  gains  an  utterly 
different  idea  from  that  which  the  original  means  to 
convey. 

Psalm  xlvi.  is  in  every  way  worthy  to  be  placed 
side  by  side  with  Psalm  xlii.,  and  has  been  the  inspira- 
tion of  many  of  the  choicest  of  modern  religious 
lyrics,  for  example,  Luther's  "  Ein'  feste  Burg  ist 
unser  Gott."  The  situation  is  not  clear.  It  could 
have  been  equally  well  written  on  any  of  the  half- 
dozen  occasions  to  which  its  composition  has  been 
referred  by  the  commentators  or  on  none  of  them. 
A  citizen  of  Jerusalem  and  a  devoted  adherent  of  its 
Temple  worship  Expresses  in   verse,  whose    softness 

9* 


202      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

and  delicate  melody  is  almost  elegiac,  his  confidence 
amid  the  thickening  rumors  of  war,  in  the  security 
and  abiding  prosperity  of  the  city  which  Jehovah  has 
chosen  for  His  abode.  It  is  one  of  the  sweetest 
idyls  of  the  Psalm  collection,  and  one  which  men  will 
read  and  enjoy  so  long  as  they  take  pleasure  in  re- 
ligious song. 

Psalm  xlvii.  has  a  much  clearer  historical  situation. 
Toward  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Jehoshaphat  there 
was  an  incursion  of  the  Bedouin  hordes  of  Moabites 
and  Ammonites  from  the  East  Jordan  steppe,  into  the 
remarkable  and  confused  particulars  of  whose  inva- 
sion we  cannot  enter  now.  They  advance  within 
sight  of  Jerusalem,  whose  court  and  people  are  thrown 
into  a  panic.  During  the  night  a  quarrel  arises  in  the 
Bedouin  camp  over  the  division  of  the  spoil,  and  they 
are  utterly  routed  on  the  morrow  by  a  force  advanc- 
ing on  the  flank  to  attack  them.  On  the  fourth  day 
thereafter  a  festival  is  held  in  the  valley  of  Beraka, 
and  the  people,  led  by  the  Sons  of  Korah,  march  to  the 
music  of  trumpets  and  psalteries  in  triumphal  proces- 
sion back  into  the  city.  The  historical  allusions  in 
this  Psalm  have  persuaded  many  scholars  of  its  com- 
position for  this  occasion.  Most  admirably  was  the 
Psalm  adapted  for  the  martial  music  of  such  a  proces- 
sion. One  hears  reechoed  in  the  very  words  the 
shouts  of  the  rejoicing  multitude  and  the  blare  of  the 


THE  KORAHITE  SONGS.  203 

trumpets.      Even  were  it  not  written  for  this  occasion 
it  must  have  been  for  some  similar  one.      Ewald  sug- 
gests that    it   was  the   triumphal   processional    with 
which  the  restored  Temple  was  reentered.    The  art  of 
any  such  hymn  written  for  music  and  popular  song 
cannot  be  an  elaborate  one,  and  this  song  shows  its 
origin  and  design  on  its   face.     It  is  now  the  New 
Year  Psalm  of  the  Synagogue,and  through  a  curious 
mistake  of  some  of  the  Greek  fathers,  not  conversant 
with  the  original,  it  has  come  to  be  used  in  the  Church 
on  Ascension  Day.^ 

Psalm  xlviii.  is  not  unlike  Psalm  xlvi.;  its  style  how- 
ever lacks  the  terseness  and  compactness  of  diction 
which  lends  such  an  irresistible  attraction  to  the  lat- 
ter.      We  find  in  it  many  exquisite  word-pictures,  as 
in  the  second  verse,  where  the  poet  paints  Zion  as  be- 
held from  the  north,  beautiful  for  situation,  the  joy  of 
the  whole  earth.      Did  we  not  possess  Psalm  xlvi.,  it 
would  be  the  masterpiece  of  this  kind  of  song.      It 
was  composed  at  a  time  when  Jerusalem  had  just  been 
delivered  from  the  danger  of  attack  by  an  army  of 
allied  peoples-probably  at  the  same  period  as  Psalm 
^Ivii-the  incursion  of  the  allied  Bedouin  in  the  reign 
of  Jehoshaphat.    The  author  has  outlived  the  danger, 
and  returned  in   safety  to  the  city  he  pours  .forth  m 

1  In  ver.  5  (of  the  English  version)  the  going  up  of  God  was  interpreted 
of  the  ascension  of  Christ.    (T.) 


204     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

these  graceful  measures  his  thanksgiving  for  its  de- 
liverance. 

Psalm  xlix.  is  a  didactic  poem,  and  we  well  know 
that  not  even  the  genius  of  Lucretius  has  succeeded 
in  making  a  didactic  poem  readable.  The  didactic 
habit  of  mind  is  so  incompatible  with  the  poetic  that 
either  the  thought  lames  the  verse  or  the  verse  runs 
away  with  the  thought.  This  Psalm  is  no  exception 
to  the  rule,  for  the  metre  is  sacrificed  to  the  poet's 
wrestling  to  explain  the  enigma  of  life — the  apparent 
success  in  this  world  of  the  evil  and  the  vicious  at  the 
expense  of  the  good.  If  any  of  you  have  read  She- 
mitic  literature  extensively  you  will  know  that  liter- 
ary modesty  is  a  quality  of  which  even  the  best 
Shemitic  writers  seem  utterly  oblivious,  but  they 
should  not  be  judged  by  Aryan  standards,  for  this, 
as  well  as  a  lack  of  all  high  conception  of  the  mean- 
ing of  literary  property,  is  a  racial  and  not  a  personal 
defect.  The  author  of  this  Psalm  is  a  striking  case 
in  point.  He  begins  like  Elihu  in  the  Book  of  Job  by 
calling  aloud  on  all  the  world,  rich  and  poor,  high 
and  low,  to  attend  while  his  mouth  speaks  wisdom 
and  his  mind  unfolds  the  solution  of  it  all.  But  he 
has  no  solution  to  offer  which  goes  beyond  the  shal- 
lows of  the  current  thought  in  his  time.  His  conclu- 
sion peneti-ates  no  deeper  into  the  mystery  than  that 
of  the   Ecclesiast — that  all   worldly   good  is,  in  its 


THE  KORAHITE  SONGS.  205 

nature,  a  vain  thing  unworthy  of  pursuit,  because  it 
cannot  save  man  from  that  death,  which  he  says  is  to 
end  all,  and  of  aught  beyond  which  the  singer  has  no 
hope  or  intuition.  A  poem  of  such  a  nature  is 
excluded  from  judgment  by  the  canons  of  pure  art, 
so  it  is  much  when  we  say  for  it  that  the  poet  has  not 
utterly  sacrificed  form  to  thought  as  have  the  authors 
of  some  of  the  other  didactic  poems  in  our  Psalter. 
Who  the  author  was  we  do  not  know.  His  vocabu- 
lary and  terminology  are  so  scholastic  that  there  may 
be  some  ground  for  the  view  of  those  who  suppose 
him  to  have  been  a  Levitical  teacher  in  one  of  the 
Temple  schools. 

These  seven  songs  are  all  that  have  been  taken  from 
the  Korahite  lyrics  by  the  collector  of  our  Second 
Book.  For  the  sake  of  unity  I  will  ask  you  to  con- 
sider briefly  in  this  connection  rather  than  later,  the 
three  songs  borrowed  from  the  same  collection  by  the 
compiler  of  the  Third  Book  of  our  Psalter.  Our  re- 
view of  them  will  then  be  complete. 

The  three  songs  in  the  Third  Book,  numbered  in 
our  version  Ixxxiv.,  Ixxxv.,  Ixxxvii.,  attributed  by  their 
inscriptions  to  the  Korahite  collection,  show  in  form 
and  measure  unmistakable  resemblances  to  the  songs 
from  the  same  collection  we  have  just  been  examin- 
ing. 

Psalm  Ixxxiv.  is  to  be  placed  side  by  side  and  com- 


206     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

pared  with  Psalm  xlii.,  much  in  the  same  way  that  we 
have  already  compared  Psalm  xlviii.  with  Psalm  xlvi. 
The  poet  is  in  exile.  He  is  a  Korahite  who,  in 
times  past,  stood  as  door-keeper  in  the  house  of  his 
God ;  now  detained  by  service  among  a  heathen  peo- 
ple, he  longingly  wishes  himself  one  of  the  little  com- 
pany just  setting  out  to  appear  at  the  feast  in  Zion — 
yea  he  would  account  himself  happy  were  he  even  a 
bird  that  he  might  nestle  near  the  shrine  where  are  all 
his  affections.  The  rhythm  and  sentiment  are  perfect. 
The  author  and  situation  have  not  been  clearly 
settled.  It  may  be  from  the  first  of  the  Judean  cap- 
tivities. 

Psalm  Ixxxv.,  as  the  opening  verse  distinctly  in- 
forms  us,  was  written  subsequent  to  the  Exile  :  "when 
the  captivity  of  Jacob  had  been  brought  back."  It  is 
a  song  full  of  thankfulness  for  the  present  deliverance 
and  of  hopeful  augury  for  the  opening  era  of  the  re- 
established state,  when  truth  is  to  spring  out  of  the 
ground  and  righteousness  look  down  from  heaven. 
The  situation  is  clear.  It  was  composed  during  one 
of  the  early  returns  of  the  exulants,  probably  the  very 
first  of  these  under  Joshua  and  Zerubbabel.  It  does 
not  lack  resemblances  in  style  to  the  later  chapters  of 
Isaiah. 

The  last  of  these  Korahite  songs.  Psalm  Ixxxvii.,  is 
but  a  torso  which  has  suffered  more  at  the  hands  of 


THE  KORAHITE  SONGS.  207 

its  restorers  and  commentators  than  from  the  original 
mutilators.  The  author  seems  to  be  a  patriotic 
burgher  of  Jerusalem  who  regards  its  citizenship  as 
the  highest  distinction  and  privilege,  and  one  which 
all  the  surrounding  nations  will  speedily  come  to 
seek.  The  rhythm  and  thought  both  flow  easily. 
It  is  usually  referred  to  the  time  of  exhilaration  in 
Jerusalem  which  followed  Sanherib's  (Sennacherib's) 
defeat. 

Thus  we  have  run  through  all  these  songs  of  the 
Korahites  which  have  been  preserved  to  us  in  our 
Psalter.  None  of  them  seem  earlier  than  the  time  of 
Jehoshaphat,  none  later  than  the  close  of  the  Exile. 
The  art  in  almost  all  of  them,  though  differing  in 
degree,  is  perfect  in  its  kind.  It  is  a  minute,  elabo- 
rate and  technical  art,  showing  such  influence  of 
culture  and  the  schools  as  renders  it  probable  that  all 
of  them  were  composed  by  the  Levitical  singers, 
whose  name  the  book  from  which  they  were  taken 
bears.  Their  separate  individuality  offers  a  bar  to 
the  suggestion  that  all  of  them  come  from  the  same 
hand. 

As  to  who  the  authors  may  have  been  we  can  in 
no  case  establish  so  much  as  a  probability.  But  what 
need  that  matter  ?  Does  the  question  of  authorship 
ever  affect  the  beauty,  the  meaning,  the  influence  of 
any  song?     Would  not  the  nineteenth   Psalm  have 


2o8     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

the  same  force,  the  same  inspiration  for  us  and  for  all 
time,  no  matter  by  whom  or  in  what  century  it  was 
written  ?  Does  the  forty-second  Psalm  lose  one 
petal  of  its  loveliness  because  from  some  obscure 
singer  whose  name  the  world  has  forgotten  ?  Are 
these  literary  questions  forever  to  be  measured  by 
the  line  and  plummet  of  preconception?  Theodoret 
was  right  when  he  told  the  Church  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury that  they  attributed  inspiration,  not  to  Divinity, 
but  to  David — "  We  need  not  care,"  he  says  further, 
"  who  the  authors  were.  The  songs  they  bring  us 
have  been  inspired  for  man's  devotion  until  the  end 
of  time." 


LECTURE    VII. 


In  the  three  lectures  which  now  remain  to  us  in 
this  present  course,  we  shall,  of  necessity,  be  obliged 
to  hasten  over,  or  touch  but  cursorily  upon,  many 
points  of  interest  in  our  Psalter,  that  we  may  have 
space  to  call  your  attention  to  other  matters  of  im- 
portance, which  are  not  accessible  outside  the  techni- 
cal literature,  connected  with  the  exposition  of  the 
original  text.  However,  the  literary  problems  arising 
in  the  study  of  the  last  four  books  are,  to  so  great  a 
degree  the  same  as  those  we  have  already  discussed 
at  length  in  speaking  of  the  collection  and  arrange- 
ment of  the  First  Book,  that  we  can,  in  general, 
assume  the  solution  of  them  then  suggested  to  hold 
good  for  all  the  books  of  the  Psalter. 

We  were  speaking  to  you  in  the  last  hour  of  the 
Second  Book  of  our  Psalter,  which  includes  Psalms 
xlii-lxxii.,  and  is  a  collection  of  thirty-one  songs, 
made  at  a  date  somewhat  later  than  that  to  which 

209 


2IO     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

we  are  obliged  to  assign  the  First  Book.  We  had 
the  pleasure  of  examining  the  delicate  and  fragrant 
garland  of  song,  gathered  by  the  collector  from  the 
older  "■  Lyrics  of  the  Sons  of  Korah,"  which  form 
the  distinctive  feature  and  characteristic  beauty  of 
the  Second  Book.  Poetry  of  such  dainty  form  and 
brilliant  color  is  to  be  found  nowhere  else  in  He- 
brew literature,  and  rarely,  if  at  all,  in  any  other 
literature.  The  English  version  preserves  to  us  their 
thought,  but  the  aroma  of  the  delicate  rhythm  has 
been  volatilized,  and  the  subtle  beauty  of  the  word- 
painting  has  been  blurred.  One  leaves  them  with 
reluctance  to  pass  on  to  the  other  songs  of  the  book. 

The  collector  borrows  one  song.  Psalm  1.,  from  the 
Book  of  Asaph,  the  leader  of  the  Temple  band  at  the 
time  of  David,  but  songs  from  the  Book  of  Asaph 
form  such  a  characteristic  feature  of  the  Third  Book, 
where  there  are  no  less  than  twelve  of  them,  that  for 
the  sake  of  unity  of  treatment,  we  will  defer  speaking 
of  this  Psalm  until  we  come  to  take  up  the  next  book. 

The  collector  also  differs  in  method  from  the  col- 
lector of  the  First  Book,  in  making  use  of  three 
anonymous  songs,  taken  from  no  older  collection  of 
which  we  have  any  information.  These  are  the  songs 
numbered  Ixvi.,  Ixvii.,  Ixxi.,  in  our  version.  Psalm 
xliii.  of  course  cannot  be  reckoned  among  them,  as 
it  is   no   more  than  the  final   strophe  of  Psalm  xlii., 


THE  ANONYMOUS  PSALMS.  211 

first  made  into  a  separate  Psalm  by  a  copyist's  blun- 
der ;  while  Psalm  Ixxii.,  though  without  any  super- 
scription of  authorship,  is  quite  clearly  referred  to  the 
"Davidic  Book"  by  an  editorial  subscription,  wrongly 
counted  in  our  version  as  the  final  verse  of  the  Psalm. 
The  compilers  are  so  minute  and  painstaking  in  the 
information  they  give  us  as  to  the  songs  of  whose 
origin  they  have  knowledge,  that  it  is  only  fair  to 
presume  in  the  case  of  all  the  anonymous  Psalms,  not 
alone  in  this  book,  but  also  in  the  subsequent  books, 
that  they  were  themselves  ignorant  of  the  authorship 
and  situation. 

All  peoples  have  their  store  of  unwritten  popular 
melody  which,  in  the  early  time,  when  writing  was 
an  acquirement  of  a  small  learned  or  wealthy  class, 
was  far  more  extensive  than  we  can  gain  any  idea  of 
from  the  habit  of  our  own  period,  when  the  thought 
of  the  singer  is  no  sooner  articulate  than  it  passes 
into  the  hands  of  the  printer.  The  world  has  long 
since  outgrown  its  ballad  period,  but  at  the  time  our 
Psalter  was  being  collected,  thou"-h  on  the  verere  of 
the  days  of  book-making,  the  Hebrew  people  were 
still  ballad-creators.  We  shall  find  later,  in  the  Fifth 
Book,  a  number  of  ballads  known  as  the  "  Songs  of 
Degrees,"  which  grew  up  among  the  people  in  their 
journeys,  which  thrice  in  the  year  they  made  from 
all  over  the  land  to  the  feasts  in  Jerusalem. 


212      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Of  the  origin  of  poetry  among  the  Shemitic  people, 
I  hope,  if  time  allow,  to  give  you  some  account  ere 
we  close  these  lectures.  Thf  ir  ballad  poetry,  as  that 
of  every  other  people,  was  born  silently  and  unob- 
served from  the  popular  consciousness ;  grew  up  in 
the  mouth  of  the  people  at  their  feasts  and  assem- 
blies, was  sung  by  their  minstrels  in  ever  varying 
form,  until  finally  it  received  the  literary  fashion  in 
which  it  has  come  down  to  the  later  time  from  some 
editor  who  caught  and  confined  it  in  the  fixed  bounds 
of  writing. 

The  ballad  poetry  of  most  peoples  is  of  two  kinds, 
either  warlike  or  patriotic  song,  inspired  by  great 
victories  and  national  deliverances,  or  the  song  of 
peaceful  pastoral  life — in  both  cases  furnishing  the 
student  of  history  and  of  manners,  with  the  truest 
picture  of  the  life  and  surrounding  of  the  people  who 
sang  them. 

Israel  was,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see,  from  the 
earliest  times  in  which  we  have  record  of  them,  a 
musical  people,  and  one  devoted  to  song.  They 
celebrated  their  victories  and  feasts  with  dance  and 
with  song,  many  fragments  of  which  are  still  pre- 
served to  us. 

The  motive  of  our  Psalm  collectors  being  purely 
religious,  they  have  of  course  taken  from  this  popular 
melody  no  songs  save  those  fitted  for  use  in  the  Tem- 


THE  ANONYMOUS  PSALMS. 


213 


pie  worship.  Most  of  them  are  rcHgious  ballads 
which  grew  up  among  the  people  during  their  feasts 
at  the  tabernacle  or  Temple.  In  regard  to  some  of 
them  it  seems  probable  that  they  were  first  committed 
to  writing  by  those  who  collected  our  Psalter. 

But  there  is  still  another  not  insignificant  source 
whence  the  anonymous  Psalms  have  come.  The 
service  of  the  Temple  was  ceremonial  and  ritualistic, 
and  accompanied  through  all  its  parts  by  an  elaborate 
chanting  of  the  various  Temple  choirs.  For  the  pur- 
pose of  this  ceremonial  Temple-song  there  were  many 
pieces  prepared  by  the  priests,  or  even  by  the  choir ; 
arrangements  of  older  melodies  or  original  adaptations 
of  familiar  words  of  Scripture.  As  prepared  for  music 
and  the  use  of  the  Temple  choir,  little  stress  would  be 
laid  on  their  arranger.  When  at  a  later  time  these 
arrangements  were  taken  into  our  Temple  Books 
most  naturally  they  appeared  anonymously.  Their 
arranger  or  adapter  may  have  been  a  member  of  the 
Temple  choir  whose  individuality  was  sunk  in  that  of 
the  body  to  which  he  belonged,  or  in  some  cases  he 
may  have  been,  as  the  wont  in  our  own  day  is,  no 
more  than  some  priest  or  Temple  servant  detailed  for 
this  special  service. 

When  we  come  to  examine  the  Fifth  Book  we  shall 
find  it  largely  made  up  of  these  songs  which  have 
been  arranged  for  the  use  of  the  Temple-choir,  whos^ 


214     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

rhythm  fitted  to  music,  whose  meagre  thought,  whose 
reiteration  of  the  same  phrases,  betray  unmistakably 
to  the  student  of  the  original  their  composition  in  the 
music-room  of  the  Temple.  Compare  even  in  the 
English  version  Psalms  like  xix.,  or  xlii.,  with  musical 
compilations  like  Psalms  cxxxvi.,  or  cl.,  and  you 
will,  in  some  small  degree,  gain  the  same  impression. 

Now  from  one  of  these  two  sources,  either  from 
the  popular  religious  Jyrics,  whose  only  author  was 
the  mouth  of  the  people  who  sang  them,  or  from  the 
liturgical  compilations  for  the  Temple  choir,  the 
name  of  whose  musical  adapter  was  deemed  of  no 
moment,  the  great  majority  of  our  anonymous  Psalms 
have  come.  It  requires  little  knowledge  either  of 
poetry,  or  Hebrew  style,  to  enable  one  quickly  to 
discern  to  which  class  to  refer  any  given  song. 

There  then  remains  a  very  small  residuum  of 
anonymous  songs  whose  personal  allusions  are  so 
distinct,  and  of  such  a  nature,  as  to  lead  us  to  refer 
them  to  some  one  or  another  of  the  poets  or  prophets 
who  are  known  to  us  from  the  historical  books.  It 
is  probable  that  these  came  to  the  Psalm  collectors 
by  verbal  tradition,  (of  course  in  its  simple  line  of 
transmission),  for  if  they  had  come  from  any  older 
book,  the  collectors'  racial  habit  of  mind  and  own 
personal  scrupulousness  of  detail  would  have  led 
them  to  make  a  note  of  it. 


THE  ANONYMOUS  PSALMS.  2 1  5 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  collector's  rea- 
son for  giving  us  no  inscription  of  authorship  for 
these  Psalms,  was  his  inability  to  assure  himself  of 
the  authorship  with  any  certainty. 

This  whole  question  of  anonymous  Psalms,  there- 
fore, of  which  so  much  has  been  made,  is  really,  as 
we  have  endeavored  to  present  it,  a  very  simple 
one,  which  need  occasion  no  one  the  slightest  diffi- 
culty. The  doctors  of  the  Talmud,  with  their  fatal 
facility  for  finding  mares'  nests  in  every  bush,  have 
almost  hopelessly  muddled  it,  and  strange  to  say,  it  is 
from  them  that  most  Christian  scholars  have  learned, 
rather  than  from  the  study  and  comparison  of  the 
Psalms  themselves.  If  you  understand  me  then  aright, 
you  will  see  that  the  "  anonymous  Psalms "  lack 
the  inscription  of  authorship  from  so  slightly  mystical 
a  reason  as  that  their  editor  did  not  know  who  the 
author  was.  We  fare  no  better  in  seeking  now-a-days 
for  the  authorship  from  internal  evidence.  In  regard 
to  no  one  of  them  does  the  evidence  create  proof  even 
strong  enough  to  be  called  probable. 

In  our  Second  Book  there  are,  as  I  before  said, 
three  of  these  anonymous  Psalms. 

The  first  of  these.  Psalm  Ixvi.,  is  an  admirable  spe- 
cimen of  a  liturgical  song  prepared  for  the  Temple 
ritual.  It  seems  to  have  been  arranged  for  use  in 
the  service  which  accompanied  the  fulfillment  of  the 


21  6     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

VOW  in  the  Sanctuary.  Despite  the  elevation  of  the 
monotheistic  idea  among  the  more  enhghtened  minds 
in  Israel,  it  was  the  common  practice  among  the 
people,  when  in  straits  of  any  kind,  to  make  a  vow, 
conditioned  upon  alleviation  or  deliverance,  of  some 
offering  or  sacrifice  to  Jehovah  at  His  shrine.  We 
learn  that  no  small  part  of  the  duties  of  the  priests 
was  the  reception  and  proper  offering  of  these  vowed 
sacrifices.  For  this  service  the  song  has  been  pre- 
pared. It  is  divided  into  two  parts — verses  I-12,  the 
responsive  chant  of  the  Temple  choirs,  with  which 
the  service  was  introduced ;  1 3-20,  the  chant  of  the 
officiating  priest  as  he  took  from  the  worshipper  his 
vowed  offering,  and  presented  it  to  Jehovah.  The 
parts  may  be  distinguished  without  difficulty,  both 
from  their  style  and  from  their  allusions.  As  in  most 
of  the  liturgical  Psalms,  the  arranger  has  drawn  on 
older  songs  which  he  has  adapted  for  use  in  the  par- 
ticular ceremony  he  had  in  view.  Such  an  arrange- 
ment for  constant  use  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  an 
historical  situation;  whoever  the  arranger  may  have 
been,  he  was  soon  forgotten. 

Psalm  Ixvii.  is  an  exquisite  bit  of  popular  lyric.  It 
is  a  harvest  home  song  of  thanksgiving,  sung  by  the 
reapers  as  they  followed  from  the  field  the  last  of  their 
wains,  groaning  under  the  heavily  laden  bounty  of 
nature — or  equally  well,  a  ballad  of  the  harvest  feast, 


THE  ANONYMOUS  PSALMS. 


217 


when  the  fruits  of  the  earth  had  been  garnered, 
and  the  people  were  gathered  for  rejoicing  at  the 
shrine  in  Shiloh.  It  is  an  old  song  preserved  for 
generations  in  the  mouth  of  the  people,  and  doubt- 
less all  knowledge  of  its  authorship  or  origin  had 
been  lost. 

Psalm  Ixxi.  has  too  personal  a  stamp  to  be  referred 
either  to  the  liturgic  songs  of  the  Temple,  or  to  the 
popular  impersonal  melody  of  the  people.  The  singer 
is  an  old  man  who  has  passed  a  troubled  and  varied 
life;  now  just  on  the  verge  of  the  grave,  he  is  exposed 
to  some  new  danger,  from  which  he  begs  to  be 
delivered.  His  song  is  neither  original  nor  forcible. 
It  is  simply  an  anthology  of  bits  from  older  psalms 
pieced  together  with  small  art,  and  scarce  any  regard 
to  connection  or  sequence  of  thought.  The  breadth 
of  style,  the  lack  of  grasp,  the  prosaic  thought  of 
such  part  of  it  as  is  original,  have  led  some  over- 
acute  critics  to  refer  it  to  Jeremiah,  they  further  lay- 
ing stress  on  the  anthological  method  as  being  char- 
acteristic of  the  Jeremianic  style. 

Jeremiah  certainly  is  one  of  the  least  original  or 
acute  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  whose  writings  have 
come  down  to  us.  His  thought  flows  sluggishly  and 
prosaically.  He  lacks  all  the  power  which  Isaiah  in  so 
marked  a  degree  possesses,  to  illumine  what  he  says 
with  the  touch  of  style.  His  reading  has  surfeited 
10 


2l8     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

him;  he  has  none  of  the  mystic  alembic  called  genius 
to  fuse  it  in  the  crucible  of  his  mind,  into  new  forms. 
His  writings  show  no  sustained  literary  effort,  and  are 
destitute  of  clear  and  vigorous  thought.  He  ex- 
presses himself  so  largely  not  only  in  the  ideas  but  in 
the  very  words  of  the  books  he  has  read,  that  he  may, 
with  justice,  be  called  an  anthologist.  If  ever  you  take 
up  a  critical  study  of  Jeremiah  you  will  find  many 
scholars  using  a  much  harder  word  of  him,  and  that 
is  plagiarism.  But  it  is  unjust,  for  plagiarism  implies 
a  moral  obliquity  in  the  use  of  the  material  of  an- 
other, which  is  incompatible  with  what  we  know  of 
Jeremiah's  character.  We  can  simply  say,  his  style 
was  an  unhappy  one,  from  whose  trammels  his  in- 
spiration did  not  free  him. 

Undoubtedly  the  style  and  method  of  the  author 
of  our  Psalm  resemble  Jeremiah's,  but  that  is  surely 
slight  ground  on  which  to  base  proof  of  Jeremianic 
authorship.  Could  no  one  else  in  Judea  have  had  a 
nerveless  style,  freely  interlarded  with  quotation,  save 
Jeremiah  ?  Is  it  not  probable  if  it  had  come  from  a 
man  whose  writings  were  collected  with  such  pious 
care  by  his  pupils  as  were  Jeremiah's,  that  we  should 
have  had  some  note  or  recollection  of  the  author 
preserved  ?  We  know,  of  surety,  no  more  of  the 
authorship  than  did  the  post-exilic  editor  who  gave 
it  a  place  in  his  song  collection. 


THE  ANONYMOUS  PSALMS. 


219 


The  editors  of  the  early  Greek  translation  charac- 
teristically display  their  ignorance  by  attributing  this 
Psalm  to  the  Rcchabites,  a  Bedouin  clan  descended 
from  the  Kenites,  one  of  the  Arab  peoples  allied  with 
Israel  in  their  march  through  the  desert,  who  seem 
to  have  entered  Palestine  with  them,  and  to  have 
dwelt  in  friendship  with  them  there. 

The  Rechabites  are  known  to  us  from  the  time 
when  they  sought  temporary  refuge  behind  the  walls 
of  Jerusalem,  from  the  advance  of  the  Chaldean  armies. 
Jeremiah  holds  up  their  temperance — a  virtue  com- 
mon from  the  earliest  times  among  the  Bedouin 
Shemites,  but  gradually  shading  out  in  the  ratio  of 
their  increasing  civilization,  as  an  example  to  his  own 
dissolute  ^  fellow-citizens.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that 
the  Greek  translator,  casting  about  for  some  author, 
which  he  feels  in  duty  bound  to  find  for  every  Psalm, 
and  noticing  in  our  Psalm  a  style  not  unlike  that  of 
Jeremiah,  has,  from  their  connection  with  him,  been 
led  to  pitch  upon  the  Rechabites,  than  which  no  more 
unfortunate  reference  could  be  made.  The  song  must 
have  been  written  by  some  one  intimately  acquainted 
with  the  older  Psalms,  and  there  is  not  a  trace  in  it 

1  Jeremiah  ( Jer.  xxxv.)  holds  up  the  Rechabites  as  an  example  not  of 
temperance,  but  of  obedience  to  paternal  commands,  in  order  to  rebuke 
his  fellow-citizens,  not  for  dissoluteness,  but  for  disobedience  to  the  com- 
mands of  Jehovah.     (T.) 


2  20     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

of  the  clear  air,  and  glinting  sand  of  the  desert,  which 
are  always  reflected  in  the  songs  of  the  Bedouin. 

We  consequently  see  the  value,  or  rather,  value- 
lessness  of  these  historical  notices  found  in  the  Sep- 
tuagint  with  all  the  anonymous  Psalms. 

The  collector  of  our  Second  Book  also  makes  a 
supplementary  draft  of  eighteen  songs,  on  the  older 
Davidic  Temple  Book,  which  bears  all  the  marks  of  a 
supplemental  loan.  The  collector  of  the  First  Book 
had  already  culled  the  choicest  lyrics  of  the  older 
collection.  There  are  none  of  the  Davidic  songs  in 
this  Second  Book  of  our  Psalter,  which,  for  beauty  of 
measure,  or  depth  of  thought,  can  be  compared  with 
those  in  the  First  Book. 

The  most  interesting  of  the  Davidic  Songs  in  the 
Second  Book  is  the  first  of  them,  numbered  in  our 
version  Psalm  li. 

Metrically  it  cannot  be  called  so  strong  a  poem  as 
many  others  of  the  master.  It  is  the  bitter  wail  of  a 
heart-broken  man,  athwart  whose  life  a  curse  more 
fatal  than  ever  the  old  Greek  tragedy  had  painted 
was  beginning  to  darken.  Incest,  fratricide,  and  re- 
bellion in  his  own  family,  civil  war  among  his  peo- 
ple, and  expulsion  from  his  capital  was  the  cup  which 
avenging  justice  was  pressing  to  his  unwilling  lips, 
and  of  which  he  was  obliged  to  drain  the  last  dregs. 
Scholars  have,  without  reason,  impugned  the  accu- 


THE    VIXDICTIVE  PSALMS.  221 

racy  of  the  editor's  note  as  to  the  origin  of  this 
song. 

Psalm  hii.,  we  have  already  seen,  is  precisely  the 
same  song  as  Psalm  xiv.,  though  taken  from  a  later 
and  an  imperfect  manuscript,  in  regard  to  which  we 
have  spoken  sufficiently  in  a  former  lecture. 

Psalm  Iviii.  is  a  satirical  song  on  the  unjust  judges 
of  the  people.  The  figures  come  trooping  so  rapidly 
into  the  poet's  imagination,  that  the  outline  of  one  is 
scarcely  filled  out  before  he  begins  another.  The 
poem  is,  therefore,  a  very  difficult  one,  and  in  places 
our  English  renders  it  unfortunately. 

In  the  tenth  verse  we  find  one  of  those  touches  of 
the  poet  which  betray  a  civilization  and  ethical  code 
far  different  from  our  own.  If  the  teaching  of  our 
highest  ethical  and  religious  culture  be  that  it  is  far 
nobler  to  forgive  than  to  avenge  an  injury,  better  to 
suffer  than  to  do  wrong,  there  can  be  no  excuse  for 
the  vindictive  passages  in  the  Psalms,  and  they  have 
never  "been  defended  save  by  a  special  pleading,  un- 
worthy of  the  scholarship  and  the  enlightened  morals 
of  its  authors.  Israel's  mission  to  the  world  was 
simply  a  religious  one,  to  keep  alive  the  spark  of  mo- 
notheistic revelation,  which  in  a  new  era  was  to  be 
kindled  into  a  flame.  Their  civilization  and  moral 
codes  were  neither  better  nor  worse  than  those  of  the 
surrounding  peoples.    We  do  not  excuse  their  polyg- 


2  2  2      ORIGIN  AND  GR  0  WTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

amy ;  why  should  we  seek  to  palhate  their  barbarous 
war-code  ?  Jael's  treacherous  slaughter  of  her  ally ; 
Jephthah's  sacrifice  of  his  virgin  daughter — they 
mark  a  civilization  which  the  world  has  outgrown, 
and  to  which  none  of  us  would  willingly  return. 
We  justly  feel  nothing  but  reprobation  for  David's 
conduct  toward  the  conquered  Ammonites,  in  tearing 
them  asunder  under  his  saws  and  harrows  of  iron. 
We  shudder  at  the  habit  of  mind  which  could  allow 
him  with  his  dying  breath  to  curse  his  enemies,  and 
leave  as  a  parting  injunction  upon  his  son,  "to  bring 
down  their  hoary  hairs  in  blood  into  the  grave."  It 
is  not  an  ideal  which  the  civilized  world  now  regards 
as  imitable. 

What  I  said  of  the  literary  style  of  the  Hebrew 
writers,  is  equally  true  of  their  ethical  codes.  As 
little  as  inspiration  changes  a  man's  style,  does  it 
raise  him  beyond  the  thinking  of  the  time  in  which 
he  lives. 

In  David's  time  revenge  upon  personal  or  national 
enemies  was  not  regarded  as  wrong.  He  was 
giving  expression  to  what  was  the  natural  feeling  of 
himself  and  his  people,  in  praying  that  their  feet 
might  be  dipped  in  the  blood  of  their  enemies,  and 
the  tongues  of  their  dogs-  might  lap  it  up.  The 
make-up  of  the  Shemitic  character  was  altogether 
unique.     With  great  tenderness  to  their   own  tribe 


THE   VINDICTIVE  PSALMS. 


223 


or  family,  and  an  acutely-strung  religious  sensibility, 
there  was,  in  dealing  with  others,  an  utter  lack  of 
many  of  those  moral  standards  which,  to  the  Aryan 
mind,  seem  primary  and  fundamental.  As  a  matter 
of  course,  their  habit  of  mind  is  reflected  in  their 
literature,  and  curses  similar  to  that  on  Babylon,  in 
Psalm  cxxxvii.,  where  the  singer  pronounces  him 
happy  who  will  take  their  infants  and  dash  them 
against  the  stones,  are  no  novelty  to  any  one  conver- 
sant with  the  literature  of  the  other  Shemitic  peoples. 
The  question  of  the  vindictive  Psalms  is  one 
of  the  most  famous  ones  in  the  theological  study 
of  the  Old  Testament  Scripture,  which,  of  course,  is  a 
side  with  which,  in  this  place,  we  are  not  concerned. 
But  even  in  the  literary  study  of  the  Psalter  we  must 
make  some  explanation  of  them,  and  the  most  satis- 
factory seems  to  be,  that  they  are  the  natural  expres- 
sion of  a  civilization  and  ethical  culture  alien  to  our 
own.  If  our  standards  of  morals  be  of  any  value,  it 
was  a  civilization  consciously  lower  than  that  of  the 
present,  and  for  which,  from  our  standpoint  of  doing 
as  we  would  wish  to  be  done  by,  there  can  be  no  pal- 
liation. Bear  in  mind  that  it  is  the  fidelity  with  which 
the  Hebrew  writings  preserve  the  acts  and  words  of 
its  heroes,  suppressing  nothing  and  palliating  nothing, 
which  furnishes,  more  than  the  most  ingenious  plea 
of  apologists,  a  convincing  defence  against  the  search- 


224 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


ing  attacks  on  its  credibility  and  authenticity  by  many 
of  the  most  acute  scholars.  If  inspired  men  have 
done  things  which  are  wrong,  says  Tholuck,  why 
may  they  not  have  uttered  words  which  were  selfish, 
or  passionate,  or  resentful  ?  The  Psalms  present  us 
with  an  almost  Shaksperean  picture  of  the  moral 
workings  in  the  hearts  of  their  authors.  He  is  blind 
who  cannot  see  in  them  the  touch  of  nature  which 
doth  make  the  whole  world  kin. 

Psalm  Ixv.  is  a  harvest-song  from  the  Davidic 
Book.  Scholars,  who  imagine  they  can  give  us  year 
and  day  for  each  Psalm,  have  figured  this  so  closely 
that  they  tell  us  it  was  composed  for  the  Harvest 
Feast  —  Feast  of  Pentecost  —  held  June  6,  b.  c. 
707.  All  we  can  say  is,  that  we  do  not  know  it  was 
not. 

Psalm  Ixviii.  is,  beyond  dispute,  the  most  difficult 
of  the  Psalms  ;  perhaps,  taking  it  all  in  all,  the  most 
obscure  passage  of  the  Hebrew  Scripture.  It  is  ap- 
parently a  war  song — in  style  not  unlike  the  Song  of 
Deborah — sung  by  a  victorious  procession,  marching 
in  triumph  into  Jerusalem.  In  its  interpretation,  pro- 
bably no  two  scholars  have  ever  agreed.  The  voca- 
bulary is  extremely  recondite,  and  in  many  places  the 
text  has  been  so  injured,  that  one  is  baffled  in  his 
search  for  sense  or  connection. 

Psalm  Ixx.,  as  I  showed  in  another  connection,  is  a 


NEHEMIAH. 


225 


fragment  of  the  older  Psalm  xl.,  reshaped  for  certain 
liturgical   uses. 

Psalm  Ixxii.,  of  which  I  have  also  spoken,  was, 
as  our  English  version  rightly  has  it,  composed  "for," 
and  not  "  by,"  Solomon. 

Thus  we  have  run  through  all  the  more  noteworthy 
songs  of  the  Second  Book,  As  to  their  arrangement 
we  may  remark,  as  we  did  in  reference  to  the  First 
Book,  that  if  the  collector  had  any  principle  of  ar- 
rangement, it  is  no  longer  discoverable. 

The  collection  of  the  Second  Book  is  referred  by 
many  to  Nehemiah.  Though  we  have  no  sure  in- 
formation, there  is  an  old  tradition  of  this,  and  it  is 
not  improbable  that  it  is  correct, 
i  Nehemiah  was  a  prince  of  the  Davidic  lineage.  He 
had  been  educated  at  the  Persian  court,  of  which,  in 
the  days  of  its  greatest  splendor,  he  was  a  prominent 
official.  From  the  nature  of  his  position  he  must 
have  been  a  man  of  wealth  and  culture.  History 
further  discloses  him  to  us  as  a  man  of  considerable 
administrative  ability,  and  of  great  force  of  character. 
His  story  is  told  in  the  book,  which,  not  written  by 
him,  bears  his  name  as  its  hero. 

But  there  is  another  side  of  his  story  equally  true, 
which  we  must  understand  ere  we  can  comprehend 
Nehemiah's  mission  to  his  people  in  the  right  light. 
The  power  of  Persia  had  received  a  staggering  blow, 

10* 


226     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

in  the  victories  gained  over  it  by  the  Greeks.  Not 
long  before  this  time  the  great  king  was  obliged  to 
accept  humiliating  treaties  both  from  the  Greeks  and 
Egyptians.  Milman  reports  that  among  the  con- 
ditions of  the  treaty  with  the  Greeks  was  a  surrender 
of  all  the  maritime  towns,  and  a  stipulation  that  no 
Persian  troops  were  to  approach  nearer  than  three 
days  march  from  the  seaboard.  Jerusalem,  being 
about  this  remove  from  the  sea,  became  a  post  of 
great  importance,  to  be  occupied  and  fortified,  if 
possible,  by  the  people  themselves  without  any 
such  display  of  Persian  force  as  would  alarm  their 
enemies. 

Again,  the  people  of  Palestine  had  begun  to  grow 
restive,  imagining  in  this  time  of  disaster  they  saw 
their  opportunity  for  shaking  off  the  Persian  yoke. 
It  was  essential  for  the  sake  of  order,  that  the  Jews  be 
gained  over  to  the  Persian  cause.  The  Persian  court 
acted  with  wisdom  in  sending  as  a  secret  commis- 
sioner, for  that  his  mission  was  secret  is  shown  by  the 
stealth  with  which  he  makes  his  journey,  an  official  of 
the  court  on  whose  fidelity  they  placed  reliance,  and 
yet  one  whose  race  and  royal  descent  would  gain  him 
acceptance  with  the  Jews,  who,  even  in  their  misfor- 
tune, remained  obstinately  national.  Nehemiah  ar- 
rives in  Jerusalem  in  the  spring  of  444  b.  c,  seventy- 
two  years  after  the  completion  of  the  Temple,  almost 


NEHEMIAH.  2  2  7 

a  century  after  the  first  return  under  Joshua  and 
Zerubbabel,  and  fourteen  years  later  than  the  arrival  of 
Ezra,  who  still  survived.  Of  Nehemiah's  civil  admin- 
istration, in  which  he  deserved  well  both  of  his  king 
and  compatriots,  we  can  not  speak  now.  He  fortified 
Jerusalem  with  a  skill  which  indicates  a  knowledge  of 
engineering,  and  then  secured  a  sufficient  garrison  to 
hold  it,  by  a  levy  on  the  people  of  the  outlying  vil- 
lages. Despite  great  opposition  among  the  upper 
classes,  he  gains  the  people  for  the  Persian  cause,  to 
which  they  remain  loyal  until  its  power  was  shattered 
in  the  next  century  by  Alexander's  spearmen  in  the 
battle  of  Issus.  But  even  as  the  agent  of  the  king,  he 
does  not  forget  his  nationality.  He  interests  himself 
deeply  in  the  welfare  of  his  people,  and  introduces 
many  reforms  both  in  their  worship  and  administra- 
tion, which  his  position  gives  him  authority  to  carry 
through. 

Jewish  tradition  reports  him  to  have  made  a  collec- 
tion of  hymns  for  the  Temple  service.  If  there  be 
any  truth  in  the  tradition  at  all,  it  probably  refers  to 
his  collection  of  the  Second  Book  of  our  Psalter,  and 
also  the  Third,  which  we  shall  presently  see  is  but  a 
supplement  to  the  Second.  Bred  in  the  atmosphere 
of  a  foreign  court,  Nehemiah's  acquaintance  with 
the  literature  of  his  country  would  be  largely  of  the 
literary  and  aesthetic  sort,  and  it  is  the  hand  of  an 


2  28     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

editor  working  with  a  literary  instinct,  which  we  dis- 
cern in  the  collection  of  the  Second  and  Third  Books. 

We  can  understand  why,  at  the  time  of  the  return 
under  Joshua  a  century  earlier,  the  collector  of  the 
First  Book,  some  priest  or  Levite,  whose  memory 
might  well  extend  back  to  the  former  Temple,  drew 
his  material  alone  from  the  "  Davidic  Temple  Book," 
which  use  had  made  sacred  to  him. 

We  can  equally  well  understand  how  a  man  of 
Nehemiah's  training,  if  he  be  indeed  the  collector, 
would  pass  beyond  the  old  service-books,  and  gather 
from  all  sources,  those  songs  whose  beauty  of  thought 
or  rhythm  had  attracted  him.  Whoever  the  collector 
be,  he  has  enriched  the  world's,  imagination  in  preser- 
ving such  gems  from  the  "  Songs  of  the  Sons  of 
Korah." 

The  Third  Book  is  a  much  shorter  one  than  the 
Second,  and  includes  the  eighteen  songs  numbered  in 
our  version  Psalms  Ixxiii.-lxxxix.  It  was  apparently 
collected  by  the  same  hand  as  the  Second  Book,  and 
bears  evidence  of  being  a  collection  supplementary 
to  it. 

It  contains  a  small  remainder  of  the  Korahite  songs, 
numbered  in  our  version  Psalms  Ixxxiv.,  Ixxxv., 
Ixxxvii.,  of  which  we  spoke  in  the  last  hour. 

The  only  Psalm  taken  by  the  collector  from  the 
Davidic  Book  is  the  fourteenth  in  the  book,  or  Psalm 


THIRD  BOOK  OF  THE  PSALTER. 


229 


Ixxxvi.,  as  we  number  in  our  King  James.  It  is  a 
purely  liturgical  song,  a  cento  made  up  of  fragments 
from  older  Psalms,  which  need  not  detain  our  atten- 
tion. 

The  inscription  of  the  last  song,  Psalm  Ixxxix., 
attributes  its  authorship  to  Ethan  the  Ezrahite,  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah,  one  of  the  wise  men  whose  sayings 
were  proverbial  in  the  time  of  Solomon,  not  to  be 
confounded  with  a  Levite  of  the  same  name,  who  was 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Temple  orchestra.  The 
song  is  composed  in  an  evil  time  for  the  Jewish  State. 
The  singer  calls  to  mind  the  glorious  promises  made 
to  the  Davidic  house,  and  in  words  scarce  articulate 
through  sobs,  he  pleads  their  non-fulfilment  before 
Jehovah.  The  covenant  of  God  with  His  people 
seems  void ;  the  land  is  over-run  with  enemies ; 
Jerusalem  has  been  captured;  the  throne  of  David 
has  been  cast  to  the  ground,  and  the  youthful  king 
who  sat  upon  it  has  been  shamefully  entreated. 
If  there  be  any  credence  to  be  placed  in  the  in- 
scription of  authorship  to  a  contemporary  of  Solo- 
mon, there  is  but  one  situation  to  which  the  song  can 
be  referred,  the  invasion  of  Judea  by  the  Egyptian 
army  under  Shishak,  in  the  early  years  of  the  reign 
of  Rehoboam. 

Shashang,  called  in  the  Bible  Shishak,  first  of  the 
twenty-second  Egyptian  dynasty,  was  the  son  of  an 


230     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Assyrian  captain,  who  met  his  death  in  Abydos,  and 
who  set  up  a  dynasty  at  Bubastis,  in  the  Lower  Nile 
country,  under  circumstances  which  do  not  concern 
us  now. 

Jeroboam,  who  in  the  closing  years  of  Solomon's 
reign,  had  become  the  centre  for  the  wide-spread  dis- 
affection with  the  exactions  of  that  sovereign,  obliged 
to  fly  for  his  life,  took  refuge  with  and  was  received 
with  friendliness  by  the  Egyptian  king.  On  Solo- 
mon's death  it  was  by  Shashang's  aid  that  Jeroboam 
was  helped  to  the  throne  of  Ephraim,  and  it  was,  no 
doubt,  at  the  suggestion  of  his  former  guest,  who 
held  the  Jewish  armies  in  check  on  the  north,  that 
Shashang  was  moved  to  the  invasion  which  proved 
so  disastrous  to  Judah. 

The  Hebrew  chroniclers,  k)th  to  record  the  shame 
of  their  people,  and  the  utter  break-up  of  the  Solo- 
monic kingdom  within  less  than  a  generation  after 
his  death,  hasten  over  their  recital  of  the  invasion 
with  a  few  lines.  But  in  the  rainless  air  of  Egypt 
has  been  preserved  for  thirty  centuries  the  inscription 
carved  on  his  return  by  King  Shashang  as  a  memo- 
rial of  thanksgiving  for  the  victory  granted  him  by  his 
divine  patron.  Amen  of  Thebes,  the  clear  decipher- 
ment of  which  by  Champollion,  did  more  than  any 
thing  else  to  accredit  the  study  of  the  hieroglyphs. 
In  the  south  wall  of  the  temple  at  Karnak  the  spec- 


REHOBOAM.  23 1 

tator  may  still  behold  in  colors  almost  as  fresh  as  the 
day  on  which  they  were  painted,  the  colossal  shape  of 
the  Egyptian  sovereign,  dealing  heavy  blows  with  his 
victorious  war-mace  on  the  troops  of  captive  Jews 
whom  he  drives  before  him.  Around  him  are  a  series 
of  cartouches  illustrative  of  the  cities  and  towns  he  has 
conquered.  Near  the  centre  is  one  representing 
Jerusalem  in  which  is  the  figure  of  a  young  man,  led 
a  captive,  and  beneath  him  is  the  inscription  Judh- 
melek — The  King  of  Judah.  It  is  probably  the  un- 
fortunate Rehoboam,  We  could  seek  no  more  strik- 
ing confirmation  of  the  situation  for  the  song  of  the 
now  aged  Ethan,  who  pours  out  in  this  mournful 
rhythm  the  whole  story  of  national  ruin,  disaster  and 
disgrace. 

Macaulay  said  if  we  want  the  truth  as  to  any  time 
we  must  seek  for  it  in  the  contemporaneous  songs 
and  ballads,  rather  than  in  the  narrations  of  subse- 
quent annalists.  I  think  you  perceive,  that  in  this 
Psalm,  we  gain  a  fuller  idea  of  the  crushing  defeat  of 
Rehoboam,  than  we  could  do  from  the  meagre 
notices  in  the  historical  annals  of  the  Kings  and 
Chronicles. 

Psalm  Ixxxviii.  is  pitched  on  the  lowest  and  most 
hopelessly  mournful  key  of  any  of  the  Psalms.  The 
situation  is  a  purely  personal  one.  The  singer  repre- 
sents himself  as  a  man  aflflicted  with  leprosy,  which 


232      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

makes  him  an  abomination  and  shuts  him  off  from  all 
communication  with  his  kind.  It  has  come  to  him 
through  no  fault  of  his  own,  but  by  inheritance ;  from 
his  youth  up  he  can  remember  nothing  but  weary 
and  loathsome  years  of  pain.  Manifestly  nothing  of 
the  sort  would  be  applicable  to  the  reputed  author, 
Heman,  the  Ezrahite,  who,  as  the  historical  books 
inform  us,  was  one  of  the  nobles  of  the  Solomonic 
court.  The  idea,  and  very  words  as  well,  remind  us 
so  forcibly  of  Job,  that  if  we  accept  Heman's  author- 
ship, against  which  no  valid  ground  can  be  urged,  we 
shall  do  better  to  explain  the  song  as  an  adaptation 
or  recollection  from  the  Book  of  Job.  The  story  of 
Job  was  a  very  popular  one  in  the  time  of  Solo- 
mon, when  it  was  probably  translated  into  Hebrew, 
and  received  the  literary  form  in  which  we  now 
have  it. 

But  most  deserving  of  attention,  and  most  charac- 
teristic of  the  Third  Book,  are  the  eleven  Psalms 
the  editor  has  borrowed  from  the  older  "  Songs  of 
Asaph."  We  have,  however,  a  far  different  judgment 
to  pass  on  their  art  and  style  than  that  of  the  last 
hour  on  the  cultured  and  delicate  lyrics  of  the  Korah- 
ites. 

Poetry  is  the  artistic  expression  of  the  imagination 
through  language ;  differing  thus  from  music,  which 
is  the  expression  of  the  imagination  through  sound. 


L  YRIC  AND  EPIC  POETRY. 


m 


as  sculpture  through  form,  painting  through  color, 
and  so  on  around  the  circle  of  the  arts. 

This  being  so,  our  present  conception  of  poetry,  as 
coincident  with  rhythm,  is  a  faulty  one.  In  the  poe- 
try of  many  peoples,  and  markedly  in  that  of  the 
Shemitic  people,  there  is  no  trace  of  formal  rhythm 
such  as  we  understand  by  the  term.  I  doubt  if  there 
is  a  single  song  in  the  Psalter,  which,  in  the  original, 
could  be  made  to  rhyme.  The  only  rhythm  in  He- 
brew poetry  is  rhythmical  thought,  and  what  I  mean 
by  this  you  may  perchance  understand  if  you  are 
acquainted,  in  contemporaneous  English  literature, 
with  the  so-called  prose  of  Ruskin  or  Pater,  which 
you  are  doubtless  aware  has  more  claim  to  be  re- 
garded as  poetry  than  much  of  our  so-called  verse. 

From  the  material  with  which  it  deals,  poetry  is 
commonly  divided  into  Lyric  and  Epic. 

Lyric  poetry  is  a  subjective  art,  in  which  the  poet 
gives  expression  alone  to  the  pictures  painted  in  his 
imagination  by  his  personal  passion  or  emotion. 

Epic  poetry  is  an  objective  art,  in  which  the  poet 
gives  expression  t!b  the  shapes  into  which  his  imagina- 
tion has  cast  the  facts  of  the  external  world  coming 
into  contact  with  it. 

Of  lyric  poetry,  we  have  already  met  with  exam- 
ples in  our  study  of  the  Psalter :  of  epic  poetry  we 
shall  speak  in  a  moment. 


234     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Now  these  Songs  of  Asaph  belong  to  neither  of 
these  well  recognized  classes  of  poetry,  but  to  another 
and  less  commonly  recognized  one  called  didactic 
poetry. 

Didactic  Poetry  is  commonly  defined  as  that  in 
which  the  poet  primarily  proposes  to  himself  teaching 
of  some  kind,  either  ethical,  or  religious,  or  literary. 
If  the  poet  merely  gives  expression  to  his  mental 
processes  as  they  reflect  themselves  in  his  imagina- 
tion, with  no  object  in  view  beyond  their  utterance,  of 
course  it  is  poetry,  just  as  much  as  the  similar  ex- 
pression of  his  passion  or  emotion.  But  if  he  con- 
sciously propose  to  himself  as  a  primary  object,  either 
teaching  or  persuasion  of  any  kind,  there  come  into 
play  such  intellectual  processes  as  to  exclude  the 
product  from  the  category  of  poetry.  So  at  least 
critics  have  quibbled  and  split  hairs  over  the  right  of 
didactic  poetry  to  a  place  among  the  arts.  Probably 
the  truth  is  that  the  intellectual  element  involved  in 
a  didactic  poem,  is  always  at  the  expense  of  the 
imaginative — the  better  the  teaching,  the  poorer,  of 
necessity,  is  the  poetry.  And  yet,  from  the  earliest 
times  men  seem  to  have  had  an  irresistible  impulse 
toward  committing  their  thinking  and  teaching  to  the 
one  vehicle  least  fitted  to  convey  it.  Witness  "  The 
Theogony "  of  Hesiod,  "  The  Georgics  "  of  Virgil, 
the  "De  Natura  Rerum  "  of  Lucretius;  or,  coming 


ASAPH.  235 

to  our  own  literature,  the  unreadable  mass  of  verse 
from  the  morally  didactic  school  so  popular  at  the 
beginning  of  this  century,  whose  best  representative 
is  Cowper's  Task. 

Under  this  same  class  of  didactic  poetry  these 
Songs  of  Asaph  are  all  to  be  placed ;  but  before  we 
can  estimate  aright  their  personal  peculiarities  we 
must  see  who  Asaph  was. 

Asaph  was  one  of  the  first  figures  pitched  upon  for 
attack  by  the  Leyden  school,  who,  to  their  own 
satisfaction,  made  short  work  of  him,  leaving  not  even 
the  wrack  of  his  name  behind.  My  opinion  of  their 
methods,  which  involve  more  difficulties  than  those 
they  solve,  I  have  already  alluded  to,  and  will  not 
revert  to  now. 

Asaph  was  born  not  far  from  the  year  1050  b.  c,  of 
a  Levitical  family  who  lived  in  a  country  village  of 
the  upland  of  Ephraim.  Through  all  his  poetry 
there  runs  a  vein  of  tender  feeling  for  the  home  of 
his  childhood,  and  one  of  the  most  mournful  of  our 
Psalms  is  his  lament  over  Ephraim's  revolt,  which,  as 
an  old  man,  he  had  lived  to  behold  and  grieve  over. 
His  favorite  figures  of  a  shepherd  and  the  sheep, 
which  are  found  in  almost  all  these  songs,  and  are 
reiterated  and  dwelt  on  by  him  as  by  no  other  singer 
in  our  Psalter,  are  perhaps  recollections  of  his  boyish 
days  when  he  himself  followed  the  flock. 


236     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

As  a  young  man  he  seems  to  "have  entered  one  of 
the  prophetical  schools  of  Samuel — a  master  whose 
memory  he  revered,  and  whose  influence  is  very  appa- 
rent in  his  poetry.  It  was  here,  doubtless,  that  his 
mind  received  that  didactic  cast  which  ever  after 
remained  so  characteristic  of  it,  and  from  his  stay  in 
this  school  came  the  appellation  of  "seer"  or  prophet, 
by  which  he  was  commonly  known. 

The  teaching  of  these  schools  was  accompanied  by 
music,  in  which  the  young  man — for  he  must  have 
been  then  a  very  young  man  to  have  lived  until  the 
revolt  of  Ephraim — so  excelled  as  to  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  David,  who  appointed  him  second  band-master 
in  the  Temple  orchestra.  There  is  an  evident  confu- 
sion in  the  chronicler's  mind  as  to  whether  Heman  or 
Asaph  was  the  leader  of  the  Temple  band,  which  finds 
its  solution  in  the  probable  fact  that  Heman  was  the 
real  leader,  while  Asaph  was  the  more  prominent 
musician  of  the  two. 

His  favorite  instrument,  with  which  he  led  the 
band,  and  on  which  he  is  expressly  spoken  of  as  a  solo 
performer,  was  the  cymbals,  which,  quite  remarkably, 
in  Egypt,  whence  Israel  borrowed  their  musical  instru- 
ments, were  only  allowed  to  be  used  in  sacred  music. 

He  died  in  the  reign  of  Rehoboam,  and  left  a 
numerous  family,  who  seem  to  have  retained  as  well 
their  ancestor's  cast  of  mind  as  his  musical  ability. 


ASAPH.  237 

His  descendants  are  spoken  of  as  in  the  orchestra 
of  the  Temple  at  the  time  of  Jehoshaphat,  and  later 
again,  in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah ;  one  hundred  and 
forty-eight  of  them  return  from  the  Exile  with 
Joshua,  and  receive  the  same  position  in  the  restored 
Temple. 

We  learn  from  the  inscriptions  of  these  Psalms 
that  Asaph  was  a  poet.  From  the  Psalms  them- 
selves, we  learn,  if  I  may  say  so,  that  he  was  a  man 
of  decided  poetic  genius,  who  endeavored  to  set  forth 
in  poetry,  his  extensive  readings,  and  ideas  of  a  kind 
which,  in  their  nature,  are  incapable  of  a  suitable 
treatment  in  it.  The  perceptible  struggle  in  his 
verse  between  the  intellect  and  the  imagination 
is  a  painful  one ;  it  renders  it  obscure  to  us,  as, 
no  doubt,  it  must  also  have  been  to  his  contempo- 
raries. In  reading  him  it  always  occurs  to  me  that 
he  was  a  man  of  the  same  order  of  mind  as  Robert 
Browning. 

All  the  poems  which  bear  his  name  cannot, 
however,  have  been  his  personal  composition,  as 
some  of  them  contain  clear  allusions  to  events  which 
could  not  have  occurred  until  long  after  his  time. 
It  is  only  fair  to  presume  that  there  was  in  his 
family  a  book  bearing  his  name,  and  containing  his 
poems,  and  that  to  this,  little  by  little,  there  were 
added   other  poems  of  the  same  manner.     We  have 


238      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

already  seen  that  this  was  so  in  the  case  of  the 
Davidic  Book,  and  it  strikingly  approves  itself  as  so 
here,  by  the  statement  in  Chronicles,  that  when  the 
commission  of  Hezekiah  collected  the  "Songs  of 
David,"  they  also  collected  "the  Writings  of  Asaph." 
This  doubtless  was  the  "  Book  of  Asaph,"  from  which 
the  collector  of  the  Second  and  Third  Books  has 
taken  the  songs  which  appear  in  our  Psalter. 

The  only  one  of  these  Asaphian  Songs  found  in 
the  Second  Book  is  Psalm  1.,  the  most  vigorous  of 
them  all  in  thought  and  expression,  seemingly  pointing 
to  the  collector  of  the  Second  Book's  having  had  the 
first  selection  of  them,  somewhat  in  the  way  that 
the  compiler  of  the  First  Book  had  of  the  Davidic 
collection,  or  the  compiler  of  the  Second  Book  of 
the  "  Songs  of  Korah."  The  poet  represents  in  a 
grand  theophany,  like  that  of  old  on  Sinai,  Jehovah 
appearing,  and  calling  His  people  before  Him  to 
make  clear  to  them  the  real  meaning  of  His  law, 
which  had  become  to  them  no  more  than  a  ceremo- 
nial observance.  He  rises  to  an  ethical  height  in  his 
apprehension  of  the  meaning  of  religion,  as  an  order- 
ing aright  of  one's  life  before  God,  which  is  far  beyond 
his  time.  His  teaching  that  sacrifice  is  a  vain  thing, 
seems  almost  an  echo  of  the  saying  of  his  master, 
"  that  to  obey  is  better  than  sacrifice,  and  to  hearken, 
than  the  fat  of  rams." 


SONGS  OF  ASAPH.  239 

The  poet  is  a  man  of  elevated  and  lucid  thought, 
of  clear  and  perspicuous  expression.  There  can  be 
no  convincing  ground  urged  against  the  author's 
being  Asaph  himself,  nor  do  I  see  the  cogency  of  the 
evidence  which  has  led  most  scholars  to  refer  its 
composition  to  the  reign  of  Josiah. 

It  is,  however,  from  the  Third  Book,  that  we  gain 
our  best  idea  of  the  measure  and  manner  of  Asaph's 
genius,  for  over  haff  of  this  book  is  composed  of 
Asaphian  songs,  which  we  will  briefly  run  through. 

The  first  of  them  is  Psalm  Ixxiii.,  in  which  the  poet 
is  struggling  with  the  problem  which  seemed  for  the 
ancient  Hebrews  the  hardest  to  solve — how,  if  there 
be  a  divine  government  of  men,  can  the  wicked  be 
allowed  to  prosper  at  the  expense  of  the  righteous  ? 
So  troubled  is  he  with  the  evil  and  oppression  he  sees 
all  around  him,  that  he  is  about  giving  up  all  belief 
in  a  moral  order  of  the  world.  Thinking  it  over  he 
at  length  enters  into  the  sanctuary  of  God,  i.  c,  he 
penetrates  into  the  hidden  thought  of  the  divine  gov- 
ernment and  perceives  that  in  the  unhappy  end  of  all 
evil  doers  lies  the  solution  of  the  mystery.  The 
thought  is  sustainedly  elevated,  and  hovers  on  the 
very  edge  of  an  intuition  of  a  conscious  future  im- 
mortality, which  the  singer,  even  if  he  were  able 
to  grasp,  seems  unable  to  formulate.  It  is  among 
the    strongest   of   these    poems.      The   author   and 


240     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

situation,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  poem,  are  not 
clear. 

The  next  is  Psalm  Ixxiv.  In  studying  the  question 
of  the  Maccabean  Psalms,  we  have  examined  this 
Psalm  sufficiently.  We  then  saw  there  was  a  possi- 
bility that  Psalms  Ixxiv.  and  Ixxix.  came  from  that 
period.  If  you  are  further  interested  in  the  question 
of  their  origin  you  will  find  the  reasons,  pro  and  con- 
tra, ably  discussed  and  weighed,  from  the  conserva- 
tive side,  by  Dclitzsch  in  his  Commentary  on  the 
Psalms — at  the  best  in  the  last  German  edition. 

Psalm  Ixxv.  is  a  prophetic  vision  of  God's  judg- 
ments on  the  heathen,  etched  in  broad  light  and 
shade  by  the  lyric  burin.  The  Septuagint  is  probably 
correct  in  referring  it  to  the  judgment  against  the 
Assyrian ;  the  style  and  allusions  as  well  are  very 
similar  to  the  burdens  against  Assyria  in  the  pro- 
phetic writings.  As  a  specimen  of  the  interpretation 
of  the  newer  school,  whose  standard  is  the  subjective 
one  of  taste,  I  may  mention  Hitzig's  reference  to  this 
as  the  song  sung  by  Judas  Maccabeus,  when  he  con- 
quered Apollonius.  He  actually  represents  him  danc- 
ing around  his  fallen  foe,  whose  head  he  has  just 
hewn  off,  singing,  "  All  the  horns  of  the  wicked  will 
I  cut  off,  but  the  horns  of  the  righteous  shall  be 
exalted." 

Psalm  Ixxvi.  is  poetically  the  most   noteworthy  of 


SONGS  OF  ASAPH.  24I 

the  Songs  of  Asaph.  The  expression  is  graceful, 
and  the  cadence  melodious.  The  singer  havinsf  no 
ethical  problem  to  work  out,  has  devoted  more  at- 
tention to  the  form  of  the  poem,  but  is  unable 
entirely  to  free  himself  from  the  didactic  habit,  which 
alone  prevents  the  song  from  being  ranked  among 
the  very  best  of  the  Psalter.  The  reference  in  it 
to  the  stout-hearted  who,  "with  their  chariots  and 
horses,  have  been  cast  into  a  deep  sleep,"  points  un- 
mistakably to  the  destruction  of  the  host  of  Sanhe- 
rib  (Sennacherib)  and  gives  us  the  situation  of  the 
poem. 

In  Psalm  Ixxvii.  the  poet  is  in  despair  over  some 
national  calamity — many  imagine  the  revolt  of  the  ten 
tribes — from  which  he  struggles  free  by  calling  to 
mind  the  days  of  old,  and  Jehovah's  former  dealings 
with  His  people,  as  an  augury  for  future  good.  The 
Psalm  ends  abruptly  without  completion,  and  in  the 
midst  of  a  thought.  Whether  this  be  a  flaw  in  the 
manuscript,  or  the  song  was  left  incomplete  by  its 
author,  we  do  not  know.  The  song  is  of  chief  inte- 
rest, as  having  furnished  Habakkuk  with  the  idea  of 
the  glowing  theophany  in  the  last  chapter  of  his  pro- 
phecy, as  a  comparison  will  show  you.  It  is,  conse- 
quently, a  very  old  song.  ^ 

Psalm  Ixxviii.,  with    its   seventy-two  verses,  is  the 

^  The  date  of  the  prophecy  of  Habakkuk  is  about  B.  C.  6io.     (t.) 
II 


242     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

longest  of  the  Songs  of  Asaph,  and  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  specimens  of  Hebrew  epic  poetry. 

Epic  poetry,  as  I  scarcely  need  repeat,  after  what  I 
said  a  moment  ago,  is  simply  narrative  poetry,  in 
which  the  singer  clothes  with  verse  the  facts  or  ob- 
jects, either  real  or  imagined,  of  the  external  world 
which  surround  him,  or  of  which  he  has  learned  from 
history.  In  a  word,  it  is  objective  poetry,  differing 
thus  from  lyric  or  subjective  poetry  in  which  the 
artist  throws  on  his  canvas  only  the  pictures  of  the 
imagination,  arising  from  the  subjective  passion  or 
emotion  of  the  moment,  and  which  is  purely  the  ex- 
pression of  personal  excitement  or  exaltation.  There 
is  no  inherent  reason  why  an  epic  should  not  be  writ- 
ten on  the  events  and  persons  of  one's  own  daily  life. 
The  poetic  faculty  refuses  readily  to  grasp  these  as  too 
familiar  and  commonplace — there  is  no  play  for  fancy 
in  their  description,  so  the  more  usual  sphere  of  the 
epic  has  been  incidents  and  personages  remote 
enough,  either  in  time  or  place,  for  a  halo  of  romance 
to  have  formed  around  them,  on  which  the  imagina- 
tion has  room  to  work.  So  it  is  that  among  every 
people,  its  early  and  heroic  age  is  the  favorite  field  of 
the  epic  poem.  We  need  search  no  further  for  an 
illustration  than  our  own  land  and  time.  We  might 
with  reason  hope  for  an  epic  on  the  Pilgrim  Fathers, 
or  the  early  colonists.      In  fact,  I  do  not  know  but 


EPIC  POETRY. 


243 


that  our  common  conception  of  them  is  in  a  measure 
epical,  but  I  greatly  doubt  whether  we  can  expect  an 
epic  on  our  own  day,  until  the  lapse  of  a  couple  of 
centuries  has  obliterated  our  failings,  and  projected 
our  virtues  into  mythical  outline. 

The  epic,  you  further  know,  may  have  its  rise 
among  the  people,  from  the  recollections  which  clus- 
ter around  some  eponymous  hero,  or  national  epoch; 
such  are  the  Iliad,  the  Nibelungen,  the  Cid,  or  our 
own  Arthurian  Cycle.  Or  it  may  be  the  original 
product  of  some  poetic  artist,  whose  imagination  has 
cast  into  new  shape  the  materials  of  history  and  tradi- 
tion ;  such  are  Virgil's  "^neid,"  Camoen's  "  Lusiad," 
or  Tasso's  "  Jerusalem  Delivered." 

It  has,  of  late,  become  a  common  phrase,  in  all  our 
histories  of  literature,  that  the  Shemitic  mind  is 
utterly  destitute  of  the  creative  and  fictile  faculty,  es- 
sential to  the  composition  of  an  epic,  and  that  no- 
where in  Shemitic  literature  is  an  epic  to  be  found. 
It  is  one  of  the  astounding  statements  for  which  the 
history  of  literature  is  indebted  to  M.  Renan,  which, 
as  everything  he  writes,  is  presented  by  him  with  such 
grace  of  style,  and  apparent  fairness,  that  a  layman  is 
first  charmed,  and  then  persuaded. 

One  would  find  it  difficult,  however,  to  exclude  this 
Psalm  from  the  epic  cycle,  under  any  definition  of  it 
which    could    be   given.     The   poet,   to    whom    the 


244     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

history  of  his  people  is  familiar,  reproduces  it  in  an 
epic  song  which  only  fails  of  being  a  great  one  from 
his  fatal  didactic  habit,  which  always  clips  his  wings 
when  about  to  make  his  highest  flight.  The  truth 
is  that  there  is  not  less  epic  poetry  among  the 
Shemitic  than  other  peoples.  You  need  go  no 
farther  than  our  Psalter  to  find  no  less  than  a 
dozen  epic  songs.  Though  the  Shemitic  habit  of 
mind  was  predisposed  to  lyric  song,  in  which  it 
has  produced  the  world's  masterpieces,  there  was 
nothing  in  it  which  unfitted  it  for  epic  poetry,  as 
we  could  abundantly  show  from  the  literature  of  each 
of  its  peoples,  were  we  not  already  at  the  closing  of 
the  hour. 

Psalm  Ixxx.  contains  the  beautiful  figure  of  Israel  as 
the  goodly  vine,  of  old  transplanted  from  Egypt,  now 
broken  and  wasted,  which  the  poet  probably  intends 
as  a  symbol  of  the  dissensions  which  had  arisen  be- 
tween Ephraim  and  Judah.  The  cadence  is  touch- 
ingly  soft  and  elegiac. 

Psalm  Ixxxi.  is,  one  might  almost  say,  a  homily 
cojnposed,  as  it  distinctly  says,  for  one  of  the  feasts ; 
there  is  some  doubt  whether  this  was  the  spring  feast 
of  the  Passover  or  the  autumn  one  of  Tabernacles. 

Psalm  Ixxxii.  was  the  regular  Tuesday  Psalm  in 
the  Temple.  This  we  surely  know,  for  we  have  still 
preserved  in   the   Talmud   the  rubrics  in  which  the 


SONGS  OF  ASAPH.  245 

Psalms  were  arranged  for  daily,  weekly  and  monthly 
use  in  the  service. 

Psalm  Ixxxiii.  is  the  last  af  the  eleven  "  Songs  of 
Asaph  "  in  this  book.  It  is  the  petition  of  some 
singer  for  the  deliverance  of  his  people  from  a  league 
of  East-Jordan  folk  which  is  threatening  them.  The 
situation  is  clear,  as  in  the  time  of  Jehoshaphat,  of 
which  I  spoke  to  you,  in  connection  with  Psalm 
xlviii.  Possibly  the  author  may  have  been  Jahaziel, 
of  the  sons  of  Asaph,  whose  speech  in  the  council  of 
war  at  this  time  turned  the  tide,  and  lent  new  courage 
to  the  army  which  was  about  to  fly.  There  are  beside 
several  likenesses  of  style  between  this  Psalm  and  the 
speech  of  Jahaziel,  reported  somewhat  at  length  in 
Chronicles,  which  would  justify  this  conclusion. 

Our  review  of  the  songs  taken  into  our  Psalter 
from  the  Asaphite  Book  is  now  complete.  The 
general  sketch  of  their  literary  peculiarities  was  given 
as  we  began  our  review,  and  we  have  now  nothing 
further  to  add  to  it. 

The  Collector  of  this  Third  Book,  we  have  seen, 
was,  probably,  the  same  as  of  the  Second,  to  which 
it  seems  to  be  supplemental.  Of  his  method  we 
spoke  sufficiently  when  reviewing  the  Second  Book, 
In  the  next  hour  we  will  pass  on  to  consider  the 
Fourth  and  Fifth  Books  of  our  Psalter,  and  the  new 
problems  which  arise  in  connection  with  them. 


246     ORIGIN  AKD  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

The  source  of  all  true  poetry  must  be  the  human 
imagination,  and  the  singer  who  gives  utterance  to 
the  verse  is  but  the  creature  of  his  age.  Of  no 
singers  is  this  truer  than  of  those  whose  songs  are 
preserved  in  our  Psalm  Book.  They  are  intensely  na- 
tional, narrowly  local  and  personal,  yet  through  their 
verse  there  runs  a  silver  thread  of  something  which 
binds  it  to  the  highest  religious  consciousness  of  the 
most  civilized  nations  of  the  earth.  The  heart  of 
man  is,  and  ever  will  be,  swayed  by  the  songs  of  the 
Hebrews  as  by  none  other. 


LECTURE   VIII. 


In  the  last  lecture,  we  had  the  pleasure  of  exami- 
ning together  some  of  the  many  questions  of  interest 
arising  in  connection  with  the  Second  and  Third 
Books  of  our  Psalter.  We  found  at  every  point  invi- 
ting vistas,  whose  beauty  was  suggestive  of  delightful 
and  repaying  study,  but,  in  the  scant  space  of  the 
hour,  we  could  take  no  more  than  a  glance  down 
each  of  them. 

I  often  fear  you  may  regard  my  treatment  of  the 
Psalms  as  rather  a  flitting  from  flower  to  flower  of  its 
poesy,  but,  in  the  lectures  of  which  this  brief  course 
has  been  made  up,  it  has  been  infeasible  to  do  more 
than  barely  touch  upon  the  more  noteworthy  Psalms, 
and  some  few  of  the  distinctive  features  of  their  lit- 
erary method  and  poetic  art. 

The  latest  French  writer  on  aesthetics,  M.  Veron, 
tells  us  that  the  most  favorable  conditions  for  active 
personal  receptivity  and  assimilation  are  found  in 
ruins,    vanishing   lines,    unfinished    work ;    it   is    in 

247 


248     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

leaving  to  his  reader  or  auditor  an  opportunity  to  fill 
up  and  complete  at  will  all  detail  of  the  sketch,  that 
the  literary  artist  shows  his  power.  I  may  at  least, 
therefore,  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  these 
lectures,  imperfect  as  they  are,  are  in  accord  with 
both  the  spirit  and  letter  of  this  newest  canon  of 
aesthetics. 

At  the  closing  of  the  hour,  we  were  discussing  the 
artistic  genius  of  Asaph,  which  we  saw  was  of  the 
didactic  order.  We  further  saw  that  didactic  poetry, 
or  that  in  which  the  artist  proposes  to  himself  to 
interpret  thought,  and  to  appeal  to  the  intellect,  is,  by 
its  very  nature,  excluded  from  the  highest  poetry, 
which  is  a  creation  of  the  imagination.  Asaph  was 
an  artist  of  genius,  and  a  man  of  clear  and  lofty 
thought.  In  discussing  the  limitations  of  his  art, 
we  had  occasion  to  refer  to  the  various  forms  of 
poetry  as  they  appear  among  the  Shemitic  people. 
In  the  closing  moments  of  the  hour  we  were  endea- 
voring to  show  the  falsity  of  the  view,  now  so  gene- 
rally obtaining  in  all  histories  of  culture,  that  Shemitic 
literature  is  destitute  of  the  epic  song. 

Hand  in  hand  with  this  view,  of  the  barrenness  in 
the  Shemitic  mind  of  that  objectivity  and  fictile  skill 
essential  to  the  epic,  is  the  other  view,  which  then  I 
did  not  have  time  to  mention,  of  its  lack  of  all 
dramatic  power.    Both  are  outgrowths  of  the  brilliant 


DRAMA  TIC  FOE  TR  Y. 


249 


misapprehension  of  M.  Renan  as  to  the  genius  of  the 
Shemitic  race.  For  proof  of  the  absence  of  the  drama 
in  Shemitic  hterature  he  has  naught  to  urge,  save  a 
half  dozen  epigrams  sparkling  with  the  style  of  which 
he  is  so  consummate  a  master,  and  a  few  stories  of  the 
failure  of  French  opera  companies  in  Algiers  and 
Beyrout,  clever  enough  as  after  dinner  talk,  but  little 
to  the  purpose  in  a  literary  investigation  which  lays 
claim  to  be  serious.  One  almost  despairs  of  any 
advance  in  the  comparative  study  of  the  world's 
Hterature  and  art,  when  theories  like  this,  unripe 
even  in  their  author's  brain,  only  need  utterance  to 
be  accepted.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  we  have  preserved, 
even  in  the  sacred  literature  of  the  Jews,  the  oldest 
and  perhaps  most  characteristic  dramatic  poetry 
which  has  come  down  to  us  from  antiquity. 

Drama  is  the  representation,  by  a  poetic  artist,  of 
the  action  or  conversation  of  individuals  other  than 
himself  They  may  or  may  not  be  purely  the 
creatures  of  his  imagination.  As  through  them  alone 
the  movement  of  the  story,  or  the  development  of  the 
plot  is  to  be  gathered,  it  is  essential  to  a  perfect 
dramatic  art  that  the  artist  remain  in  the  background. 
If  the  figures  that  move  before  us  express  aught 
which,  not  arising  naturally  from  their  surrounding, 
betrays  the  artist's  inspiration  of  them,  the  effect  of 

the  art  is  destroyed.     There  are  therefore  essential  to 

II* 


250 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


the  dramatic  artist  two  qualities,  creative  imagina- 
tion, and  the  power  of  impersonal  representation  of 
action. 

Drama  is  the  highest  form  of  the  poetic  art,  bor- 
rowing from  the  epic  its  material,  from  the  lyric  its 
method,  and  possessing,  as  a  subtle  power  fusing  the 
two,  a  keen  insight  into  the  development  of  character 
in  different  measure. 

It  is  a  mistaken  conception  of  dramatic  art  which 
makes  it  coincident  with  scenic  effect;  this  latter  is 
but  a  spur  to  the  imagination,  and  has  never  obtained 
save  among  peoples  destitute  of  personal  dramatic 
power,  for  a  background  suggestive  of  what  the  artist 
or  actor  could  not  convey.  I  have  no  lance  to  break 
with  the  present  art-theories  running  counter  to  this 
view,  but  I  cannot  but  regard  them  as  insufficient, 
because  gained  from  an  observation  of  the  artistic 
phenomena  peculiar  to  a  single  family  of  our  race. 
Whatever  the  failings  of  the  Shemitic  racial  habit 
may  be — and  that  they  are  numerous  and  far-reach- 
ing enough  to  place  them  on  a  perceptibly  lower 
plane  than  the  Indo-European,  we  have  seen  to 
abundance  in  the  progress  of  these  lectures — we  can- 
not, however,  deny  them  the  possession  of  a  more 
highly  developed  dramatic  power  than  any  other 
people. 

Art,  to  have   its  highest  effect,  must  be  personal. 


DRAMA  TIC  POETRY.  2  5  I 

It  is  through  human  feature,  human  voice  and  hu- 
man gesture,  that  it  can  alone  exercise  its  perfect 
working.  All  else  is  subsidiary  and  a  help  to  this. 
Go  into  any  coffee-house  in  the  Levant,  and  ob- 
serve the  Arab  story-teller,  whose  only  property  is 
the  ragged  mat  he  sits  upon,  whose  only  company 
the  myriad  shapes  which  people  his  brain,  as  he 
relates  the  romance  of  Antar,  that  story  of  wonder 
without  beginning  or  end.  Watch  the  subtle  facial 
expression,  the  modulation  of  his  voice  toned  to  a 
fineness  incredible  to  an  occidental,  the  skilful  gesture 
which  interprets  the  thought  even  to  one  ignorant  of 
the  speech,  and  you  will  witness  a  pure  dramatic 
effect  which  it  would  be  impossible  for  the  most 
skilled  European  company,  even  with  the  property  of 
Baireuth  at  their  disposal,  to  produce.  You  would, 
without  need  of  further  argument  with  theorists,  be 
convinced  of  the  dramatic  aptitude  of  the  Shemitic 
race.  Our  art-critics  deny  them  the  dramatic  capa- 
city, for  no  other  reason  than  that  they  spurn  the 
crutch  which  we  find  essential  for  walking,  that  they 
have  the  power  of  producing,  with  no  other  means 
than  the  human  organs,  effects  which  our  most 
elaborate  machinery  is  unable  to  produce. 

But  this  is  not  the  place  nor  time  for  elaborate  art 
discussion ;  of  more  importance  to  our  present  study 
is  the  evidence  of  their  creative  dramatic  power  as 


252      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

evinced  in  literature.  This  we  will  glance  at  a  moment 
ere  we  take  up  once  more  the  thread  of  our  Psalms. 

Going  no  further  than  Hebrew  literature,  I  would 
call  your  attention  to  the  Book  of  Job  and  the  Sono- 
of  Songs,  as  characteristically  representative  of  the 
two  types  under  which  the  drama  is  usually  classed — 
tragedy  and  comedy. 

Tragedy  is  that  form  of  the  drama  in  which  the 
characters  are  represented  in  conflict,  usually  with  the 
powers  of  nature  or  of  fate.  That  in  most  instances 
they  succumb  to  these  influences  is  purely  accidental, 
and  is  neither  inherent  in  tragedy,  nor  essential  to  its 
working  out. 

Comedy  is  that  form  of  the  drama  in  which  the  cha- 
racters are  represented  at  rest,  the  artistic  object 
being  to  produce  pleasure ;  its  art,  which  is  confined 
to  agreeable  situations,  is  of  a  much  narrower  range 
and  on  a  lower  plane  than  that  of  tragedy.  Pleasure, 
of  course,  is  an  intellectual  motive,  but  if  amusement 
as  distinguished  from  pleasure  become  its  aim,  it 
degenerates  into  farce,  and  loses  all  claim  to  be  con- 
sidered as  art. 

I  know  not  in  what  literature  there  is  to  be  found 
a  more  perfect  and  artistic  tragedy  than  the  Book  of 
Job.  The  personal  art  of  the  poet  is  consummate, 
his  own  personality  completely  retiring  behind  that 
of  his  characters,  which  develop  themselves  out   of 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  253 

what  seems  to  be  the  very  necessity  of  their  situation. 
There  is  no  indication  of  the  artist's  own  surround- 
ing ;  the  knowledge  or  manners  of  his  time  have  left 
no  trace  on  the  setting  or  development  of  his  plot. 
It  is  impossible  for  us  to  gather  from  his  drama,  from 
what  age,  or  religion,  or  race  the  artist  has  sprung. 
He  is  unapproached  by  any  one,  either  of  the  Greek 
or  English  dramatists,  in  that  suppression  of  himself 
which  is  the  first  qualification  of  the  dramatic  artist. 

Observe  the  perfect  art  with  which  the  plot  is  laid 
and  developed. 

In  an  epic  prologue,  almost  Euripidean  in  form, 
covering  the  first  two  chapters  of  our  version,  the  ar- 
tist accomplishes  at  the  very  outset,  what  Sophocles, 
in  his  prologues,  so  thoroughly  understands  how  to 
do.  He  excites  our  interest  in  the  occurrences  to  be 
brought  forward,  acquaints  us  with  the  hidden  motive 
lying  concealed  from  the  actors,  and  dexterously  ties 
the  knot  of  the  puzzle,  which  the  subsequent  action 
is  to  disentangle.  I  cannot,  with  justice  to  the  sub- 
ject, in  the  moment  during  which  alone  I  can  speak 
of  this  drama,  make  clear  to  you  the  masterly  way 
in  which  the  plot  is  developed.  How  the  action 
rises  with  increasing  bkaiz,  or  mystery,  during  the 
first  three  scenes ;  how  through  the  skilful  interlude 
formed  by  the  speech  of  Elihu  (a  lay  figure),  it  passes 
to    the   Xbaiz  or   solution,  first  through  its  unravel- 


254     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

ment  in  the  consciousness  of  the  hero,  leading  him 
to  an  humble  concession  of  his  wrong,  and  lastly,  by- 
its  disentanglement  in  outward  reality,  through  the 
appearance  of  Jehovah  as  a  Deus  Vindex,  reconciling 
the  dualism  which  lies  at  the  base  of  all  tragedy,  and 
whose  solution  the  Greek  dramatists  groped  after  in 
vain.  It  is,  from  beginning  to  end,  a  stream  of  most 
dramatic  action,  as  in  Goethe's  Tasso,  the  external 
action  being  compensated  for  by  the  life  and  precision 
with  which  the  characters  are  drawn ;  their  ideas  are 
worked  into  incidents,  which  are  brought,  as  it  were, 
before  the  eye.  If  you  follow  the  struggle  depicted 
in  the  mind  of  the  hero,  while  grappling  with  the 
problems  to  man  the  most  insoluble,  his  alternations 
of  faith  and  distrust,  hope  and  black  despair,  and 
finally  triumphant  confidence,  you  will  see  that  he  is 
no  less  a  tragic  hero  than  the  QEdipus  of  the  Sopho- 
clean  drama.  Even  the  minor  art  of  the  drama  is 
perfect  in  kind,  as  in  the  painting  of  the  three  friends 
with  whom  the  reader  at  first  takes  sides,  gradually 
grows  indifferent,  and,  at  last,  without  any  con- 
scious break  or  compulsion  from  the  artist,  finds 
himself  drawing  away  from  them  to  the  side  of  the 
hero. 

Did  we  examine  the  more  poetic  side  of  this  drama, 
and  notice  the  inexhaustible  wealth  of  thought,  the 
keenness  of  psychological  analysis,  the  deep  know- 


BOOK  OF  JOB.  255 

ledge  of  human  motive,  the  wide  acquaintance  with 
the  ever  varying  mood  of  nature,  the  power  to  paint 
human  passion,  and  man,  as  acted  on  by  the  myste- 
rious forces  of  nature,  the  originahty  and  vigor  of  the 
poetic  intuition,  the  richness  of  the  fancy,  the  chaste 
beauty  of  the  color  which  never  shows  a  shade  too 
much,  we  could  justly  join  in  the  summing  up  of  a 
recent  commentator,  that  neither  the  Hindus,  nor 
the  Greeks,  nor  the  English,  have  produced  such  a 
lofty  and  purely  perfected  drama.  We  may,  most 
nearly,  compare  it  with  the  tragedies  of  ^schylus 
or  Shakspere,  but  we  can  find  among  these  not  a 
single  one  which  approaches  its  depth  of  thought 
or  perfection  of  form.  It  is  the  greatest  tragedy 
of  the  world's  literature.  Does  it  not  seem,  there- 
fore, incredible  that  the  people  who  have  produced 
the  great  master  and  masterpiece  of  the  drama, 
should,  by  our  latter  day  critics,  be  denied  all  capabil- 
ity for  dramatic  art  ? 

Comedy  we  saw,  as  distinguished  from  tragedy 
whose  basal  idea  is  that  of  man's  conflict  and 
struggle  with  the  forces  which  surround  him,  is  the 
painting  of  still  life,  the  development  of  character 
under  those  influences  which  are  normal  to  it,  our 
present  idea  of  the  humorous  as  connected  with  it 
being  unessential  and  accidental.  Bearing  this  defini- 
tion in  mind,  you  will  not  misunderstand  me  when  I 


256     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

say,  that  the  literary  form  of  the  Song  of  Songs  is 
what,  in  the  literature  of  other  peoples,  we  should  call 
comedy.  But  at  the  outset  1  decline  to  venture  on 
any  explanation  of  this  book,  as  I  have  myself  found, 
when  studying  it,  no  less  than  forty-seven  different 
interpretations  among  Christian  scholars  alone,  and 
how  many  more  there  may  be  I  do  not  know. 

The  outcome  of  the  varied  and  heated  discussions 
of  this  book  has  been  to  show  that  it  is  a  drama 
developing  a  complete  action  through  the  representa- 
tion of  character.  The  motive  of  the  plot  is  the  one,, 
which,  old  as  the  world,  is  ever  new.  We  know  the 
hero  was  Solomon.  The  heroine  is  addressed  in 
words  as  the  Shulamite  (vi.,  13)  and  we  have  clear 
traces  of  a  chorus  of  women  referred  to  as  the 
"  Daughters  of  Jerusalem."  This  is  the  surely  gained 
ground,  but  when  we  leave  it  we  are  at  sea.  Scholars 
of  equal  learning  tell  us  that  Solomon  is  the  virtuous 
hero,  or  that  he  is  playing  a  role  similar  to  Faust's  with 
Gretchen  ;  that  the  Shulamite  is  the  daughter  of  an 
Egyptian  king,  or  that  she  is  a  simple  country  maiden 
beguiled  to  Jerusalem  from  her  home  in  the  vale  of 
Shulem ;  that  the  chorus  carries  with  the  hero  and 
heroine  the  whole  action,  or  that  there  are  at  least 
twelve  chief  actors  accompanied  with  a  numerous 
troupe  of  shepherds  and  vintagers  ;  that  the  finale  is 
Solomon's  marriage,  or  that  it  is  the  return  of  the 


THE  SONG  OF  SONGS.  257 

Shulamite  to  her  rustic  lover ;  that  it  is  a  pastoral 
drama  which  grew  up  at  the  harvest  feasts  in  the 
kingdom  of  Ephraim ;  that  it  is  a  play  written  by- 
Solomon  for  the  summer  theatre  in  his  garden,  or 
most  marvelous  of  all,  for  which  we  are  indebted  to 
M.  Renan,  that  it  is  a  chance  libretto  of  the  royal 
opera  company  of  Jerusalem ;  that  it  was  written  in 
the  tenth  century ;  that  it  was  not  written  until  the 
first  century,  and  under  the  influence  of  the  Greek 
erotic  poets. 

Oriental  scholarship  makes  a  ridiculous  and  melan- 
choly spectacle  of  itself  in  ^  the  hopeless  way  with 
which  it  is  ever  anew  attacking,  and  ever  is  baffled  by 
this  literary  and  linguistic  riddle.  As  I  said,  I  have 
no  explanation  of  it  to  offer,  for  I  make  no  pretence  to 
understand  it,  and  have  not  the  slightest  idea  by 
whom  or  for  what  purpose  it  was  written.  So  much 
may  be  agreed  on,  that  in  literary  form  it  belongs  to 
those  compositions  we  call  dramas,  and  that  under 
this  we  must  assign  it  to  comedy.  Whether  written 
'  for  public  representation  or  not,  it  is  impossible  to  say, 
though  its  composition  for  such  a  purpose,  if  proven, 
could  have  no  effect  on  any  sacred  character  we  may 
assign  .to  it. 

As  a  help  in  studying  this  book,  we  may  recall  the 
Miracle-Plays  which  sprang  up  in  the  middle  ages 
around  the  service  of  the  church,  written  by  the  clergy 


258     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

for  the  teaching  of  rehgious  truth,  performed  in  the 
church  at  Eastertide,  or  some  other  feast  day,  and  exer- 
cising, among  a  rude  and  unlettered  community,  an 
influence  for  good,  far  beyond  that  of  the  spoken  word. 
I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  literary  origin 
of  this  mysterious  book,  may  some  time  be  found  to 
have  been  for  the  religious  instruction  of  the  people 
gathered  at  one  of  the  Temple  feasts.  For  the  pre- 
sent it  is  certainly  very  puzzling.  A  single  word  as 
to  the  art  of  the  author,  and  I  am  through  with  the 
discussion  of  this  book. 

Art  in  comedy,  we  have  seen,  is,  from  its  necessary 
limitations,  inferior  to  that  of  tragedy,  and  so  it  would 
not  be  fair  to  compare  the  art  of  this  book  with  that 
of  Job.  In  my  personal  study,  I  have  been  wont  to 
make  use,  as  a  means  of  comparison,  of  Hariri,  an 
Arab  poet  of  the  eleventh  century,  who  is  the  master 
of  Shemitic  comedy,  in  much  the  same  way  that 
Moliere  is  of  the  Indo-European  comedy.  The  com- 
parison is  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  author  of  the 
Song  of  Songs.  He  is  not  destitute  of  pictorial 
power,  but  his  art  is  crude  and  rudimental,  the  author 
seemingly  lacking  that  grasp  of  human  nature,  which 
is  almost  as  essential  to  the  comedian  as  to  the  trage- 
dist.  If  you  wish  a  comparison  from  English  litera- 
ture, I  would  say  he  stands  related  to  Hariri,  some- 
what as  Chapman  to  Shakspere. 


FO  URTH  BO  OK  OF  THE  PSAL  TER.  259 

The  question  has  further  been  raised  whether  there 
be  not  dramatic  song  in  the  Psalter.  This  we  will 
endeavor  to  answer  in  our  further  study  of  it,  to 
which  we  now  return. 

We  had,  in  the  last  hour,  finished  the  study  of  the 
Third  Book,  which  brought  us  as  far  as  Psalm  xc,  in 
our  collection.  We  now  proceed  with  the  Fourth 
Book,  which  is  one  of  the  shorter  collections  which 
make  up  our  Psalter,  including  the  seventeen  songs 
which  are  numbered  in  the  English  version  xc.-cvi., 
inclusive. 

The  collector  borrows  two  of  these  songs,  ci.,  ciii., 
from  the  early  Davidic  Temple  Book,  to  which  we 
have  had  such  frequent  occasion  to  refer.  Neither  of 
them  is  poetically  or  historically  of  importance,  and 
they  need  not  long  detain  us. 

Psalm  ci.  has  for  its  author  a  king  about  entering 
on  his  reign,  who  compiles  for  the  guidance  of  his 
conduct  this  poetical  vade  mecum  of  proverbial  say- 
ings and  maxims.  There  is  no  reason  of  weight  for 
doubting  the  personal  Davidic  authorship. 

Psalm  ciii.  is  one  of  the  Psalms  to  which  the  canon 
of  grammatical  form  spoken  of  in  one  of  our  early 
lectures  can  be  applied.  Its  form  is  so  Aramaic, 
more  Aramaic  in  fact  than  any  of  the  other  Psalms  in 
this  book,  that  it  is  impossible  to  see  how  it  could 
have    arisen   until   some  period  when  the  Aramaic 


26o     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

began  to  act  on  the  Hebrew.  It  is  consequently  one 
of  the  latest  songs  in  the  Davidic  Book.  It  was 
written  for  the  religious  song  of  the  people  as  they 
were  assembled  at  one  of  the  feasts,  probably  Pass- 
over, and  is  one  of  the  few  songs  in  the  Psalter  which 
were  primarily  designed  for  congregational  or  popular 
use,  as  distinguished  from  the  liturgic  use  of  the 
Temple  choirs.  Of  this  kind  of  song  it  is  the  best 
specimen  we  have,  and  there  are  but  few  songs  in  the 
Psalter  which  exert,  on  the  modern  religious  con- 
sciousness, so  strong  an  impression  as  does  this 
Psalm,  written  in  half  patois. 

The  large  majority  of  the  Songs  in  this  Fourth 
Book,  fourteen  out  of  seventeen,  are  anoiiymous.  In 
the  last  hour  we  saw  that  in  the  main  the  anonymous 
Psalms  had  a  twofold  source,  either  the  ballad  poetry 
of  the  people,  or  the  litiirgic  ritual  of  the  Temple, 
with  a  small  remainder  of  songs  whose  personal  ori- 
gin is  clear,  being  taken  from  verbal  tradition,  and 
remaining  anonymous  simply  because  the  collectors 
were  not  able  to  ascertain  the  authorship.  All  these 
classes  we  at  that  time  sufficiently  illustrated. 

A  somewhat  different  sort  of  Psalm  from  any  we 
have  met  with  hitherto  in  our  study  is  the  first  of 
these  anonymous  Psalms  in  the  Fourth  Book,  Psalm 
xci.,  which  is  a  dramatic  song.  The  motive  is  di- 
dactic, to  show  the  security  from  all  harm  of  those 


FO  URTH  BO  OK  OF  THE  FSAL  TER.  2  6 1 

who  trust  in  Jehovah.  This  is  developed  dramati- 
cally by  the  poet  through  the  use  of  two  voices. 
When  through  their  mutual  speech  and  reply  the 
thought  has  reached  its  height,  a  third  voice,  that 
of  Jehovah,  is  introduced,  confirming  and  ratifying 
the  trust  which  has  been  placed  in  Him.  In  speak- 
ing of  the  drama^  a  moment  since,  I  said  that  there 
were  supposed  to  be  many  dramatic  songs  in  our 
Psalter,  but  the  view  as  generally  held  seems  to  me 
to  be  a  mistake.  What  are  usually  called  dramatic 
songs  are  no  more  than  antiphonal  chants,  or  at  the 
most,  arrangements  for  various  voices  in  the  Temple 
choir.  There  are  but  one  or  two  Psalms  in  which 
the  poet's  imagination  has  worked  dramatically,  that 
is,  has  developed  itself  through  the  action  or  voice  of 
others.  The  present  Psalm  is  one  of  the  clearest  ex- 
amples of  this  method. 

Psalm  xcii.,  as  the  inscription  informs  us,  was  a 
"  Song  for  the  Sabbath  Day,"  and  we  know  was  the 
one  sung  at  the  early  sacrifice,  at  day-break,  on  Sab- 
bath morning.  As  the  stars  began  to  appear  on  the 
previous  evening,  the  Temple  was  closed,  and  the 
priests  and  Temple  servants,  who  were  to  officiate  on 
the  morrow,  were  locked  in  a  large  room  not  far  from 
the  altar.  Here  they  rested  as  best  they  could  on 
the  stone  benches,  in  their  every-day  attire,  the  only 
luxury  allowed  them  being  to  make  a  bundle  of  their 


262     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

outer  garments  on  which  to  rest  their  heads.  About 
two  o'clock  they  were  waked  by  one  of  the  rounds  of 
the  night  guard,  and  after  casting  lots  for  their  various 
duties,  proceeded  by  torch-light  to  the  onerous  task 
of  preparing  the  Temple  and  altar  for  the  worship  of 
the  coming  day.  All  was  ready  long  before  light, 
and  with  the  first  gloaming,  a  priest  ascended  the 
Eastern  tower  to  watch  for  the  coming  of  the  sun. 
As  its  limb  tipped  the  horizon,  he  gave  a  shout  to 
those  below,  and  the  taniid  C"'^.^),  or  morning  sacri- 
fice, was  immediately  commenced.  Hastily  bring- 
ing a  lamb  from  the  Temple  stalls  (a  description 
of  which  would  not  increase  our  admiration  of  the 
worship),  it  was  slaughtered  and  laid  on  the  altar, 
ere  it  had  become  full  day.  As  .the  offering  began 
the  Temple  choir  struck  up  this  Psalm.  While 
they  were  singing  it,  the  great  doors  of  the  Temple 
were  thrown  back,  and  the  multitude  came  throng- 
ing in  to  early  worship.  Somewhat  later  in  the 
morning,  for  the  benefit  of  the  upper  and  wealthy 
classes,  as  well  as  those  whose  devotion  was  not  of  a 
nature  to  lead  them  to  bestir  themselves  at  daybreak, 
there  was  a  minor  sacrifice,  called  nrnsaph  (l'?''^),  the 
time  of  which  was  regulated  by  convenience  or  the 
season  of  the  year.  At  this  a  part  of  the  song  from 
Deuteronomy  xxxii.  was  sung.  In  the  afternoon 
again,  not  far  from  three  or  four  o'clock,  there  was 


FO  URTH  BO  OK  OF  THE  FSAL  TER.  263 

what  we  might  call  an  even-song  service.  The  of- 
fering named  mmJia  ("^p^?),  was  a  simple  one  of 
cakes  of  fine  flour  covered  with  oil,  and  was  ac- 
companied by  the  singing  of  several  selections  from 
the  songs  of  Exodus  xv.,  and  Numbers  xxi.  It  was 
finished  as  twilight  was  coming  on,  and  with  it,  ended 
the  Temple  services  of  the  Sabbath. 

Psalm  xciii.  seems  a  fragment  of  an  older  song.  Its 
words  and  melody  are  winged  with  great  freshness 
of  expression.  It  was  the  regular  Friday  Psalm  in 
the  Temple. 

Psalm  xciv.  is  a  late  Psalm.  The  author  shows 
the  effect  of  the  Davidic  method  in  which  he  had 
been  trained,  yet  is  not  without  a  little  vein  of  pun- 
gent irony  peculiar  to  himself 

Psalm  xcv.  was  written  for  a  Temple  song,  and  was 
used  in  its  liturgy  in  a  way  not  dissimilar  to  its  pre- 
sent use  in  the  Anglican  church.  It  is  held  in 
general  terms,  and  contains  no  indication  either  of 
authorship  or  situation. 

Psalm  xcvi.  is  of  similar  origin  with  Psalm  xcv. 
We  can  determine  its  time  of  composition,  as  in  the 
Second  Temple,  from  the  thought  running  through  it 
that  Judaism  is  for  the  whole  world,  and  not  alone  for 
a  single  people.  This  higher  idea  of  the  universal 
mission  of  their  religion  did  not  become  part  of  the 
common  thought  of  Israel,  until  the  destruction  ofl 


264     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

their  Temple,  and  exile  among  the  stranger,  had 
broken  down  the  barriers  of  their  old  intolerance. 

The  author  of  Psalm  xcvii.  must  have  been  a  dili- 
gent reader^  of  Isaiah,  whose  thought  and  language 
he  ever  reflects  and  borrows. 

Psalms  xcviii.,.xcix.  are  Temple  songs,  which  de- 
mand no  special  mention. 

Psalm  c.  is  of  the  same  kind,  but  worthy  of  atten- 
tion for  its  clear  and  elegant  style. 

Psalm  cii.  has  the  remarkable  inscription  that  it 
was  written  by  an  unfortunate  man  who  was  in  exile. 
It  is  his  prayer  for  the  restoratioirbf  himself  and  his 
people  to  their  land,  and  for  the  rebuilding  of  Jerusa- 
lem which  lay  in  ruins.  There  can  be,  therefore,  no 
doubt  as  to  the  time  of  its  composition.  In  a  few 
places  the  author  shows  great  poetic  powfr,  but  as  an 
offset  he  lacks  consecutive  thought,  and  lucid  ar- 
rangement. Who  he  was  we  know  as  little  as  did  the 
Psalm  collector. 

Psalms  cv.,  cvi.  are  long  compilations  of  reminis- 
cences from  the  early  history  of  the  people,  arranged 
for  the  antiphonal  chanting  of  the  Temple  choirs. 
Even  in  the  English  translation  they  show  clearly 
their  art  and  their  origin.  They  are  fair  instances  of 
the  epical  method,  and  confirm  what  we  said  of  it  in 
our  previous  lecture. 

In  Psalm  civ.,  the  last  of  these  anonymous  Psalms, 


FOURTH  BOOK  OF  THE  PSALTER.  265 

we  find  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  songs  in  our  Psal- 
ter, although  poetically  it  is  not  to  be  compared  with 
many  other  of  these  songs,  and  its  grammatical  forms 
show  traces  of  a  speech  which  was  rapidly  passing  into 
desuetude.  In  this  connection  I  wish  to  call  your 
attention  to  the  fact,  that  the  two  Psalms  which  are 
intellectually  the  strongest,  this  and  the  one  hundred 
and  thirty-ninth,  are  both  anonymous,  and  both  in  a 
style  showing  traces  of  Aramaic  influence.  It  is  one 
of  the  factors  which  were  used  in  making  up  the 
famous  theory  of  a  Ten  Tribe  Song  Book,  as  it  was 
called,  whence  these  and  many  other  of  the  Psalms 
were  supposed  to  be  taken. 

The  singer  is  a  man  of  disciplined  rather  than  cul- 
tured mind,  one  who  has  received  the  most  advanced 
scientific  training  of  his  day.  He  looks  abroad  on 
nature  and  gathers  together  its  diverse  phenomena 
into  the  most  perfect  cosmos  which  antiquity  has  pro- 
duced. It  is  with  a  scholar's  eye  he  searches  it 
through ;  he  arranges  his  matter  under  accurate  and 
orderly  classifications.  His  very  nomenclature  shows 
a  trained,  it  was  on  the  tip  of  my  pen  to  write,  biolo- 
gist, when  I  bethought  myself  of  the  authority  on 
which  we  are  told  that  biology  is  a  science  not  yet 
fifty  years  old.  The  scholar's  conclusion  is  that  the 
whole  course  of  visible  life  he  has  studied  is  but  the 
effect  of  an  unseen  inscrutable  power.  In  this  power 
12 


266     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

he  discerns  such  traces  of  order,  of  thought,  and  of 
adaptation  as  to  lead  him  to  affirm  personahty ;  such 
further  traces  of  care  and  guidance  that  he  breaks 
forth  into  the  exclamation,  "  How  manifold  are  thy 
works !  in  wisdom  hast  thou  made  them  all."  The 
author  is  a  man  of  Aristotelian  mind.  He  belongs  to 
the  straitest  sect  of  the  Realists ;  his  observation  of 
phenomena  is  as  keen  as,  if  not  keener  than,  that  of  ' 
any  of  the  Empiricists ;  his  knowledge  of  nature  is 
wider  than  that  of  the  Greek  Peripatetics ;  his  concep- 
tion of  it  reaches  a  height  to  which  even  Platonists 
did  not  soar.  It  is  the  mood  of  the  present  to  speak 
of  Aristotle  as  the  father  of  natural  science,  and  yet 
here  is  a  scholar  of  an  alien  race  and  two  centuries 
earlier,  who  has  been  observing,  collecting,  and  sifting 
the  phenomena  of  nature  and  the  organic  life  which 
surround  him,  and  deducing  from  them  a  principle  of 
orderly  arrangement,  and  of  motion  through  some 
hidden  power.  There  are  some  other  sciences  beside 
theology  whose  histories  need  rewriting. 

It  is  in  a  Psalm  like  this,  written  by  a  careful  and 
inquiring  scholar  who  shows  no  trace  of  the  super- 
stition of  the  vulgar,  that  we  may  best  gain  an  idea  of 
the  crude  scientific  knowledge  of  that  early  time,  and 
of  the  Hebrew  people,  which  has  been  a  stumbling- 
,  block  to  so  many.  The  writers  of  Scripture  believe 
and  tell  us  in  their  writings  that  the  earth  was  a  plane 


FO  URTH  BO  OK  OF  THE  PSAL  TER.  267 

surface,  square  in  form,  supported  at  each  corner  by- 
pillars  resting  on  the  rocky  bed  of  the  sea  which  sur- 
rounded it;  that  its  geographical  centre  was  Judea 
and  Jerusalem ;  that  underneath  it  was  an  enormous 
cavern  called  Sheol,  through  which  flitted  the  shades 
of  the  departed ;  that  the  vault  above  was  a  cube  of 
metal,  placed  like  a  tent-cover  over  the  earth,  and 
fastened  down  at  its  corners;  that  to  this  cover  all  the 
heavenly  bodies  were  attached,  and  on  it  they  moved 
round  for  the  gratification  or  benefit  of  the  earth, 
which  was  the  centre  and  reason  of  the  whole  crea- 
tion; that  in  this  overhanging  arch  there  were 
windows,  through  which,  when  opened,  there  de- 
scended the  rain  or  snow  from  their  storehouses  just 
above.  But  enough — their  science,  as  we  said  in  the 
last  hour  of  their  ethics,  was  precisely  that  of  their 
contemporary  and  contiguous  peoples.  It  was  not 
their  mission  to  teach  science  to  the  world,  and  their 
inspiration  has  not  eliminated  their  ignorance  of  it. 
Their  mission  was  a  religious  one ;  their  eyes  were 
opened  to  behold  the  hidden  meaning  in  the  phenom- 
ena they  so  imperfectly  comprehended.  Our  singer 
teaches  that  the  world  sprang  from  a  divine  idea, 
grew  up  through  the  development  of  a  carefully 
matured  plan,  and  is  guided  by  a  perfect  order  which 
is  the  expression  of  the  divine  will.  Compare  him 
with  the  contemporary,  or  at  least  not  long  subse- 


268      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

quent  physicists  of  the  Ionian  school :  Thales  who 
taught  that  a  chaotic  water  was  the  origin  of  all — 
Anaximenes  who  saw  the  beginning  of  life  in  a  subtle 
and  potent  ether — Heraclitus  who  believed  that  a  fire 
self-kindled  and  self-extinguishable  had  set  in  motion 
the  sequence  of  phenomena  we  call  life  and  nature — 
or  even  with  Anaxagoras,  who,  rising  higher,  saw  the 
influence  of  a  mind  in  the  arrangement  -of  matter,  and 
you  will  perceive  what  in  our  Psalm  is  local  color 
and  the  ignorance  common  to  the  writer's  age,  and 
what  the  truth  for  all  time  of  which  he  had  caught  an 
intuition. 

Each  of  the  three  books,  which  we  have  hitherto 
studied,  had  some  distinctive  peculiarity.  That  of  the 
First  Book  was  its  exclusive  use  of  older  Davidic 
material — that  of  the  Second  Book  the  Songs  of 
Korah — that  of  the  Third  Book  the  Asaphian  poems. 
In  this  Fourth  Book  it  is  the  Psalm,  attributed  by  its 
inscription  to  Moses,  the  only  Psalm  in  the  entire 
Psalter  referred  by  the  editors  to  a  period  prior  to 
David.  The  fable  of  the  later  Jewish  schoolmen,  that 
certain  of  the  Psalms  were  written  by  one  or  another 
of  the  Patriarchs,  does  not  command  credence  enough 
to  warrant  our  considering  it.  The  various  views  as 
to  the  accuracy  of  the  editor's  inscription  have  natur- 
ally been  measured  by  the  commentator's  opinion  as 
to  Moses  and  the  Mosaic  age.      On  external  grounds 


PSALM  XC.  269 

it  has  been  questioned  for  some  marvellous  reasons ; 
either  because  there  was  no  such  man  as  Moses,  it  be- 
ing but  a  mythical  name  around  which  had  clustered 
the  tradition  of  the  foretime,  or  granting  his  existence, 
he  was  either  on  the  one  hand  a  rude  desert  Sheik,  un- 
trained to  an  elaborate  art  such  as  this  song  displays, 
or  he  was  just  the  reverse,  a  court  servant  of  the 
Pharaohs,  moved  by  some  personal  indignity  to  incite 
a  revolt  among  his  people ;  a  weakling  who  shrank, 
through  sheer  incapacity,  from  the  first  shock  of  battle 
with  the  hill  tribes  on  the  northern  edge  of  the  de- 
sert ;  that  he  was  murdered  secretly  during  a  mutiny 
of  the  people,  and  his  expedition  saved  by  Joshua, 
with  the  aid  of  an  allied  Bedouin  chief,  named  Caleb. 
Such  being  the  assumed  fact,  he  was  of  course  inca- 
pable of  composing  a  song  of  such  ethical  purity  and 
sublime  religious  faith. 

These  theories  as  to  Moses  are  not  hid  in  a  corner, 
but  elaborated  with  scholarship  and  skill  in  histories 
of  the  Orient  which  are  accessible  to  you  all.  I  be- 
lieve myself  they  are  capable  of  such  convincing 
historical  disproof  as  to  have  no  weight  in  our  judg- 
ment as  to  the  authorship  of  this  Psalm,  but  bear  in 
mind,  that  our  judgments  on  this,  and  alLpoints  simi- 
lar to  it  which  are  constantly  rising  in  our  study  of 
Hebrew  literature,  are  only  of  value  when  deter- 
mined on  historical  ground.     No  scholar  can  afford 


270     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

to  pooh-pooh,  as  inherently  ridiculous,  any  theory 
which  represents  the  careful  work  and  conscientious 
thought  of  any  human  mind  capable  of  investigating 
the  literary  or  scientific  phenomena  at  issue.  Any 
science,  which  allows  any  consideration  save  the 
attainment  of  truth  to  be  a  factor  in  its  study,  is  sure 
to  be  the  worst  loser.  Hebrew  literature  has  suf- 
fered well-nigh  irrecoverably  from  the  merciless  way 
with  which  even  in  the  circle  of  scholars,  whose  only 
aim  in  life  should  be  the  discovery  of  truth,  the  odium 
of  personal  ostracism  has  been  visited  upon  all  who 
have  arrived  at  views  in  regard  to  it  running  counter 
to  their  age. 

Neither  Moses,  nor  any  other  character  of  history, 
suffers  from  the  most  searching  historical  examina- 
tion. Just  as  was  said  in  a  former  hour  when  we 
were  speaking  of  David,  we  may  now  say  in  respect 
to  the  historical  character  of  Moses,  that  it  has  been  as 
satisfactorily  established  as  that  of  Charlemagne,  or 
William  of  Normandy,  or  in  fact  as  the  existence  of 
any  one  whom  we  have  not  ourselves  seen. 

The  more  common  denial  of  the  Mosaic  authorship 
of  the  Psalm  has  been  from  internal  grounds  of  allu- 
sion and  style.  The  singer  is  an  aged  man,  who, 
almost  alone  in  his  generation,  has  reached  the  three- 
score and  ten  years  which  seem  the  limit  of  life.  In 
this  exquisite  meditation  he  looks  back  over  his  gen- 


PSALM  XC.  271 

eration,  comparing  the  vanity  and  shortness  of  human 
life  with  the  everlasting  existence  and  power  of  God. 
His  poem  is  an  artistic  one.  Some  of  the  touches, 
as  the  figure  of  man  and  the  grass  of  the. field,  are  as 
daintily  worked  as  those  in  the  Korahite  Book.  His 
thought  is  elevated,  his  intuition  of  the  meaning  of 
life  deep,  his  religious  spirit  refined ;  whoever  he  may 
be,  he  must  have  been  a  man  of  genius.  I  do  not 
grasp  the  force  of  the  historical  allusions  which  have 
led  many  scholars  to  refer  its  composition  to  the  later 
monarchy.  The  allusions  of  the  song  are  held  in 
general  terms,  bearing  no  stamp  of  any  particular 
age ;  none  of  them  are  unsuited  to  what  we  know  of 
the  Mosaic  times.  When  we  come  to  closely  scruti- 
nize the  language  of  the  Psalm,  we  find  startling 
resemblances  to  the  two  'poems  known  as  the  Song 
and  Blessing  of  Moses  in  Deuteronomy  xxxii.,  xxxiii., 
all  of  them  showing  traces  of  the  same  hand  and 
artistic  method.  The  question  of  the  authorship  of 
Psalm  XC.  depends  in  the  last  resort,  as  do  so  many 
other  literary  questions,  on  our  judgment  as  to  the 
authorship  of  the  Pentateuch.  Do  we  decide  that 
Moses  wrote  the  songs  in  Deuteronomy,  the  argu- 
ment of  style  will  irresistibly  lead  us  to  believe  he 
wrote  this  Psalm. 

As  to  its  transmission  to  the  collector  of  our  Book, 
there  can  be  no  difficulty.     Speaking  of  it  in  another 


272      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

connection  we  showed  that  the  Psalm  was  not  taken 
from  the  older  Davidic  Temple  Book,  else  it  would 
have  been  cited ;  nor  was  it  transmitted  through  the 
mouth  of  the  people,  which  would  have  blurred  its 
dainty  lines,  but  it  could  well  have  been  preserved  in 
the  early  song  book,  "  The  Book  of  Valor,"  whence 
the  writers  of  Joshua  and  Samuel  have  drawn  so 
freely.  We  do  not  know  that  it  did  come  from  there, 
but  the  possibility  of  it  removes  the  difficulty. 

We  come  now  to  consider  when,  and  by  whom, 
this  Fourth  Book  of  the  Psalter,  whose  songs  we  have 
been  examining  in  detail,  was  collected.  That  you 
may  clearly  judge  of  it,  we  must  first  briefly  sketch 
for  you  the  history  of  the  period  immediately  suc- 
ceeding Nehemiah,  who  was  the  collector  of  the  Sec- 
ond and  Third  Books. 

Of  Nehemiah's  history  subsequent  to  the  thirty- 
second  year  of  Artaxerxes,  to  which  we  traced  it  in 
the  last  hour,  we  know  nothing.  It  seems  probable 
that  he  remained  at  his  post  as  Persian  commissioner 
until  the  year  405  b.  c,  when  he  would  have  been  be- 
tween sixty  and  seventy  years  old,  and  then  returned 
to  Persia  and  died  there.  His  character  as  a  man 
of  culture  and  of  letters,  and  as  an  administrator  of 
sagacity  and  decision,  we  have  already  sketched.  The 
period  of  seventy-two  years,  between  his  death  and 
the  battle  of  Issus,  is  almost  a  blank  in  Jewish  his- 


GREEK  CONQUEST  OF  PALESTINE.  273 

tory.  The  people  had  been  won  for  the  Persian 
cause  by  the  policy  of  Nehemiah,  and  to  it  they 
remained  loyal,  even  in  the  face  of  the  advancing 
armies  of  Alexander. 

There  seems,  indeed,  at  one  time,  to  have  been  a 
movement  toward  a  league  with  Egypt,  but  it  was, 
doubtless,  no  more  than  an  intrigue  of  the  aristocracy, 
whose  traditional  policy  inclined  them  toward  an 
Egyptian  alliance,  somewhat  as  the  policy  of  the 
Scotch  nobles  always  favored  alliance  with  France. 
The  people  were  under  the  immediate  control  of  the 
High  Priest,  who  was,  in  turn,  responsible  to  the  Per- 
sian Satrap  of  Syria,  for  the  payment  of  the  imposts 
and  the  preservation  of  order.  The  names  of  the 
High  Priests  during  this  period,  until  the  time  of  Alex- 
ander, are  preserved  in  the  Chronicles,  forming  one 
of  the  norms  for  determining  the  age  of  that  book. 
They  belonged  to  a  family  famous  alone  for  its  vices, 
and  equally  notorious  for  its  corruption  with  the 
family  of  Caiaphas,  who  held  the  sacerdotal  office  at 
the  beginning  of  our  era.  The  High  Priestship  be- 
came an  object  of  intrigue,  was  bought  and  sold  in 
the  palace  of  the  Persian  Satrap  who  held  the  right  of 
preferment,  and  saw  in  the  price  of  investiture  one  of 
his  richest  emoluments. 

Almost  the  only  information  preserved  to  us  from 
this  period,  is  of  a  fratricidal  quarrel  in  the  Temple, 


12 


2  74     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

between  the  High  Priest  Jochanan  and  his  brother 
Jesus,  who  had  been  intriguing  against  him  with  the 
Satrap.  The  High  Priest  assassinates  his  brother  in 
the  Holy  Place,  the  fighting  priests  have  to  be  driven 
asunder  by  a  body  of  Persian  soldiery,  and  a  seven 
years'  penance  is  laid  on  the  city.  But  do  not  let  us 
call  it  a  dark  age,  until  we  recall  how  one  Easter  day, 
scarce  ten  years  ago,  in  the  same  city,  Greek  and 
Latin  monks  brained  one  another  with  their  crosiers  in 
the  very  sepulchre  of  our  Lord,  until  expelled  at  the 
point  o(  Turkish  bayonets.  The  world  does  move, 
but  history  just  as  truly  repeats  itself. 

Historians  tell  us  that  it  was  a  time  of  quiet  inter- 
nal development  among  the  people,  but  even  that  we 
do  not  know.  During  the  wars  and  disorders  through- 
out hither  Asia,  which  foretold  the  dissolution  of  the 
Persian  power,  and  prepared  an  easy  victory  for 
Alexander,  who  should  be  called  the  Lucky  rather 
than  the  Great,  Palestine  could  not  have  escaped  un- 
scathed, and  must  have  been  more  or  less  harried  by 
the  Greek  mercenaries  who  marched  hither  and  thither 
across  it,  in  the  pay  of  Artaxerxes  Ochus,  against  the 
Phenician  and  Egyptian  towns.  They  were  fortunately 
too  weak  to  assume  a  prominent  role  in  the  troubled 
politics  of  the  times,  and  the  events  of  it  were  not 
momentous  enough  to  leave  any  record  of  them- 
selves either  in  their  traditions  or  literature. 


GREEK  CONQUEST  OF  PALESTINE.  275 

The  cloud  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand,  which  had 
been  gathering  over  the  Persian  empire  under  Phihp 
of  Macedon,  burst  into  a  storm  under  his  son  Alex- 
ander. In  the  battle  of  Issus  near  Tarsus,  fought  333, 
B.  c,  seventy-two  years  after  Nehcmiah  left  the  stage, 
Darius  was  defeated,  largely  through  his  own  bad 
manceuvering,  and  the  Persian  power  was  irretrievably 
broken.  Judging  it  imprudent  to  leave  in  his  rear  an 
enemy  so  formidable  as  the  Phenician  commercial 
towns  whose  fleets  were  threatening  the  coasts  of 
Greece,  Alexander  immediately  pushes  into  Pales- 
tine, and  lays  siege  to  Tyre,  which  is  not  captured 
until  after  a  stubborn  siege  of  seven  months.  Gaza 
also  makes  a  show  of  resistance  which  is  speedily 
crushed,  and  toward  the  close  of  the  year  332  Alex- 
ander advances  against  Jerusalem,  which  saves  itself 
from  pillage  by  a  timely  submission  and  opening  of 
its  gates.  The  story  of  his  reception  by  a  white-robed 
procession,  his  obeisance  to  the  High  Priest,  and  his 
sacrifice  in  the  Temple,  contains  too  many  anachro- 
nisms to  be  possible.  It  is  a  legend  coming  from  the 
Alexandrian  Jews,  by  whom  it  was  fabricated  to  bring 
their  nation  and  religion  into  honorable  connection 
with  the  Greek  conqueror  of  the  Orient. 

With  the  capture  of  Jerusalem,  a  new  era  begins 
for  the  Jewish  people ;  intellectually,  through  their 
contact  with  the  occidental  mind  and  the  Greek  litera- 


276     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

ture;  commercially,  through  their  enforced  settle- 
ment in  Alexandria,  and  their  dispersion  as  traders 
throughout  the  then  civilized  world.  We  cannot,  how- 
ever, follow  it.  In  the  seventy-three  years  we  have  just 
been  reviewing,  the  Fourth  Book  of  our  Psalter  had 
its  origin,  and  we  are  only  concerned  with  the  history 
of  the  time,  as  throwing  light  on  this.  It  was  not  a 
period  of  intellectual  activity  among  the  Jews ;  there 
may  have  been  some  minor  writers,  but  their  pro- 
ductive age  was  past ;  the  scholars  and  literary  men 
of  this  period  were,  for  the  most,  collectors  and 
editors  of  the  earlier  literature. 

In  what  contrast  stand  these  seventy-three  years 
in  the  literature  of  their  conquerors  ! 

This  three-quarters  of  a  century  was  the  hey-day 
of  the  splendid  literary  development  of  the  Greeks. 
Three  years  before  its  opening  the  father  of  history 
had  died  in  Italy;  two  years  later  died  Euripides, 
the  dramatist  of  human  passion,  followed  in  the 
year  with  which  the  period  opens,  by  Sophocles, 
the  dramatist  of  character.  In  its  early  years,  Thu- 
cydides,  whose  unrivalled  descriptive  power  and 
brevity  of  style  make  him  the  master  of  Greek  prose, 
had  met  his  violent  death,  and  Socrates  had  taught 
morals  and  drank  the  hemlock  in  Athens.  Toward 
the  middle  of  the  period  Plato  was  teaching  in  the 
Academy,  Xenophon  campaigning  through  Asia  Mi- 


COLLECTOR  OF  THE  FOURTH  BOOK.        277 

nor,  and  Aristotle  was  walking  in  the  porticoes  of  the 
Lyceum.  These  are  merely  the  greatest  names.  In 
some  part  of  the  same  period  lived  Agathon,  Phile- 
mon and  Menander;  Zeno,  Epicurus  and  Pyrrho  ; 
Lysias,  Isaus  and  Demosthenes.  It  is  a  galaxy  of 
names  within  a  single  century  to  which  no  other 
people  can  offer  a  parallel. 

That  the  Greeks  at  this  time  knew  anything  of  the 
Jews  is  improbable;  that  their  scholars  knew  the 
Jewish  literature  is  quite  impossible.  The  stories  of 
Plato's  acquaintance  with  the  Hebrew  Scripture,  and 
of  the  intercourse  of  Aristotle  with  Hebrew  scholars 
are  fictions  of  the  Greek  Fathers,  who  were  unable 
to  recognize  any  truth  outside  of  revelation.  Yet 
there  was  being  silently  collected  among  this  ob- 
scure and  feeble  people  a  literature  which  was  des- 
tined, not  only  to  rival  the  Greek,  but  greatly  to 
surpass  it  in  its  influence  on  the  thought  and  culture 
of  all  coming  time.  If  the  Greeks  knew  them  it  was 
only  as  a  barbarous  upland  folk,  but  they  had  already 
developed  a  poetry  more  delicate  and  refined  in  form, 
with  deeper  intuition  of  nature,  than  any  tiling  which 
the  culture  and  genius  of  the  Greeks  ever  produced. 

Who  collected  the  Fourth  Book  of  our  Psalter,  and 
to  what  time  within  this  period  its  collection  is  to  be 
referred,  we  cannot,  from  lack  of  sufficient  data,  de- 
termine with  any  approach  to  accuracy. 


278     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

From  the  number  of  purely  liturgical  songs  we 
might  be  led  to  suppose  that  the  editor  was  some 
attache  of  the  Temple,  either  priest  or  Levite.  And 
this  would  further  be  confirmed  by  what  we  know 
of  the  literary  activity  of  the  time,  which  centered 
around  the  Temple  and  its  schools. 

If  in  lieu  of  external  testimony,  or  tradition,  we 
make  use  of  the  internal  literary  evidence,  and  then 
carefully  compare  this  book  with  the  one  immediately 
following,  we  shall  probably  reach  this  result,  namely, 
that  the  Fourth  Book  was  collected  by  some  scholar 
in  connection  with  the  Temple,  about  the  middle  of 
the  period  between  Nehemiah  and  the  Greek  con- 
quest of  Palestine,  say  not  far  from  370  b.  c. 

I  say  collected  by  some  scholar,  for  if  the  literary 
evidence  as  to  the  collector's  method  which  has 
shown  us  that  the  First  Book  was  gathered  by  a 
priest,  the  Second  and  Third  by  a  man  of  literary  in- 
stinct and  culture,  be  of  any  value  here,  it  shows  us 
that  this  Fourth  Book  was  collected  by  some  one  who 
had  the  prepossessions  of  a  scholar,  and  who  wrought 
after  a  scholar's  fashion. 

In  the  next  lecture  we  will  consider  the  Fifth  Book, 
and  the  final  revision  of  all  five  books  into  the  form 
in  which  they  have  come  down  to  us  as  our  Psalter. 

The  poetic  cyclus  of  no  other  people,  whether  of 
ancient  or  modern  times,  can  for  a  moment  be  put  in 


GREEK  AND  SHEMITIC  POETRY  COMPARED.  279 

comparison  with  that  of  the  Shemites,  Those  of 
India  and  of  Greece,  which  more  commonly  have 
been  compared  with  it,  are  perceptibly  inferior.  The 
literature  of  India  needs  but  to  be  read  to  see  at  what 
a  remove,  both  in  thought  and  expression  it  stands 
from  the  hterature  of  the  Shemites.  I  do  not  imagine 
that  even  its  most  devoted  students  would  enter  a 
claim  for  its  stylistic  superiority.  Its  value  lies  at 
other  points  which  do  not  concern  us  here. 

No  one  conversant  with  the  literature  both  of  the 
Shemites  and  the  Hellens  could  venture  to  claim  for 
the  Shemitic  mind  the  breadth,  the  subtlety,  and  the 
grasp  of  the  Greek.  The  Greek  intellect  was  more 
many-sided,  if  I  be  pardoned  the  vulgarism,  than  that 
of  any  people  who  have  left  a  literature.  It  touched 
in  some  way  all  the  keys  which  the  Shemite  did, 
beside  very  many  which  were  beyond  his  reach. 

For  many  things,  as  philosophy  and  plastic  art  in 
which  the  Greeks  have  remained  masters  of  the 
world,  the  Shemitic  mind  had  no  adaptation.  Their 
art  meant  either  the  huge  or  the  grotesque — were 
Solomon's  Temple  restored  we  should  think  it  barbar- 
ous. Their  psychological  analysis  was  deep  and 
acute,  their  observation  of  phenomena  accurate  and 
extensive,  but  philosophy  and  science  were  alike  im- 
possible to  minds  incapable  of  constructing  a  synthe- 
sis.    It  was  perhaps  for  this  very  reason  that  the  few 


28o     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

keys  they  do  touch  resound  with  greater  sweetness 
and  volume.  I  imagine  that  no  one  widely  read  in 
both  Greek  and  Shemitic  poetry  would  have  any 
hesitation  to  which  to  award  the  palm,  I  would  not 
go  as  far  in  my  statement  as  one  of  the  greatest 
German  poets  of  our  century,  Friedrich  Riickert,  who 
said  that  when  wearied  with  Homer  he  would  refresh 
himself  with  a  draught  of  the  desert  air  which  effer- 
vesces like  champagne  through  the  Songs  of  the 
Hamasa.  Individual  comparisons,  whether  between 
books  or  persons,  are  always  odious  and  unjust, 
though  the  Psalms  or  Hamasa  need  not  flinch  even 
this  issue. 

The  only  fair  comparison  is  gained  by  the  study  of 
an  entire  literature,  and  what  I  mean  to  say  is,  that 
tried  by  the  canons  of  pure  art,  the  Shemitic  poetic 
literature  is  unexcelled  by  any  other. 

I  hope  to  have  space  for  the  comparison  between 
Greek  and  Shemitic  poetry  in  the  next  hour ;  if,  how- 
ever, it  be  then  of  necessity  crowded  out,  as  it  has 
been  from  this  hour,  I  shall  crave  your  permission  to 
call  your  attention  to  it  at  some  future  time. 


LECTURE    IX. 


I  HARDLY  know  whether  the  more  to  congratulate 
my  audience  or  myself  on  nearing  the  end  of  our 
journey  through  the  Psalm  country.  I  fear  the  road 
may  have  been  wearisome  to  you,  but  am  not  without 
hope  that  we  may  have  obtained  by  the  way  some 
outlooks  into  Shemitic  poetry,  and  the  habit  of  the 
Shemitic  mind,  which  will  prove  repaying. 

We  have  so  much  to  compass,  or  rather  to  strive 
to  compass,  in  the  brief  space  of  this  final  hour,  that, 
without  further  prelude,  we  must  proceed  with  our 
study  from  where  we  were  obliged  to  leave  off  at  the 
close  of  the  last  lecture. 

We  have  considered,  in  order  and  at  length,  four 
books  of  our  Psalter ;  there  now  alone  remains  the 
fifth  and  last  book. 

The  Fifth  Book  is  the  longest  of  the  Psalter  collec- 
tions, containing  the  forty-four  songs,  which,  in  our 

281 


282     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

English  version,  are  numbered  Psalms  cvii -cl.  We 
find,  on  examination,  as  might  be  gleaned  from  its 
position,  that  it  is  the  latest  of  these  books,  and, 
though  containing  some  few  remarkable  poems,  it 
leaves  upon  the  reader  the  impression  of  marked 
inferiority  to  the  other  collections.  However,  we 
must  deal  justly  with  it,  by  hastily  summarizing  for 
you  its  contents 

The  collector  has  made  a  large  draft  on  the  early 
"  Davidic  Temple  Book,"  with  which  you  are  all  ere 
now,  from  frequent  mention,  well  acquainted.  He  bor- 
rows from  it  no  less  than  fifteen  songs,  more  than  one- 
third  of  his  collection,  differing  thus  noticeably  from 
the  collectors  of  the  two  previous  books,  who, 
between  them,  borrow  from  the  Davidic  Book  only 
three  songs. 

The  first  of  these.  Psalm  cviii.,  is  of  great  interest  as 
showing  us  the  method  of  the  collector's  workmanship. 
When  discussing  that  question  in  an  early  lecture,  we 
dwelt  sufficiently  on  this  Psalm.  We  saw  that  it  was 
a  purely  liturgic  cento,  made  up  of  fragments  from 
two  older  songs,  Psalms  Ivii.  and  Ix.  We  also  en- 
deavored to  show  that  the  liturgic  arranger  had 
before  him  our  Second  Psalter  Book,  from  whence, 
and  not  from  the  older  Davidic  Book,  the  selections 
of  which  the  Psalm  is  composed  have  been  taken. 
Consequently,  the  Psalm  can  only  merit  its  inscrip- 


THE  FIFTH  BOOK  OF  THE  PSALTER.         283 

tion  as  Davidic,  in  the  sense  that  the  diverse  material 
of  which  it  is  made  up,  all  came  originally  from  the 
Davidic  collection. 

Psalm  cix.  is  one  of  the  Psalms  spoken  of  in  our 
seventh  lecture,  as  showing  traces  of  a  vindictive  ex- 
pression foreign  to  our  present  standards  both  of 
ethics  and  religion.  None  of  us  could  join  with  the 
singer  in  wishing,  even  against  our  bitterest  enemy, 
that  his  children  might  become  vagabonds,  and  his 
widow  an  outcast.  It  is  but  the  local  color  reflecting 
a  rude  age,  and  a  barbarous  civilization,  which  we  do 
not  regard  imitable,  which  we  ought  not  to  consider 
commendable. 

Psalm  ex.  has,  from  its  peculiarly  prophetic  charac- 
ter, been  the  subject  of  as  much  discussion  as  any 
other  song  in  our  Psalter.  It  brings  into  more  pro- 
minence,than  any  passage  even  in  the  prophetic  litera- 
ture, the  Messianic  idea  running  through  the  Old 
Testament,  which  has  formed  its  chief  claim  re- 
ligiously on  the  Christian  Church.  This,  however,  is 
a  secondary  meaning,  not  inhering  in  the  literary 
form,  and  one  which,  in  this  study,  designed  to  be 
purely  literary  and  objective,  I  have  studiously  striven 
to  avoid.  Hebrew  literature  is  one  of  the  most 
cultured  and  refined  in  the  world;  the  prevailing 
judgment  among  literary  men  as  to  its  obscurity 
and  inelegance,  is  the   prejudgment   either   of  igno- 


284     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

ranee  or  indolence.  It  yields  to  the  Greek  alone 
in  breadth  and  grasp ;  it  surpasses  it  in  beauty  of 
color,  depth  of  feeling  and  intensity  of  expression. 
No  other  literature,  save  the  Greek,  is  comparable 
to  it.  It  has  therefore  been  my  aim,  as  I  well 
know  but  imperfectly  attained,  to  interest  you  in 
the  neglected  literary  study  of  the  Psalter,  rather 
than  to  dwell  on  interpretations  and  expositions  ac- 
cessible to  you  in  the  current  books  of  the  time. 
Hence  we  pass  this  Psalm  with  the  single  remark, 
that  though  of  the  utmost  historical  importance, 
and  the  keystone  of  the  Messianic  interpretations 
of  the  Old  Testament,  it  is  rather  disjointed  and 
rugged  poetry.  I  read  it  one  evening  after  I  had 
been  looking  through  Robert  Browning's  "  Inn 
Album "  which  had  then  lately  appeared,  and  it 
struck  me  it  must  have  had  somewhat  the  same  effect 
on  the  mind  of  the  poet's  contemporaries,  that  the 
"  Inn  Album  "  had  just  had  on  mine. 

Psalm  cxxxviii.  is  quite  lame  enough  in  metre  to 
have  been  written  by  Jeremiah  to  whom  it  is  referred 
by  the  Septuagint.  We  have  had  occasion  before 
to  refer  to  Jeremiah's  unfortunate  and  eccentric 
style,  but  there  is  really  no  reason  to  hold  him 
guilty  of  all  the  halting  verse  in  the  Psalter.  There 
is  nothing  in  it  to  detain  us  from  passing  on  to 
Psalm  cxxxix.,  which  is  intellectually  the  strongest 


FIFTH  BOOK  OF  THE  PSALTER.  285 

poem  not  only  in  this  collection,  but   in   the    entire 
Psalter. 

Psalm  cxxxix.  may  justly  be  placed  side  by  side 
with  Psalm  civ.,  which  we  considered  in  the  last  hour. 
It  is  not,  however,  by  the  same  author,  for  though  the 
Aramaism  of  the  language  points  to  its  production  in 
the  same  period,  the  style  and  touch  are  essentially 
dissimilar.  The  author  of  Psalm  civ.  was  a  student  of 
nature  and  of  physical  science ;  the  author  of  Psalm 
cxxxix.  is  a  psychologist,  or  student  of  the  human 
mind.  His  method  is  that  of  the  school  known  in  the 
present  parlance  as  phenomenalist.  Even  through  the 
poetic  clothing  of  the  thought,  his  mind  works,  from 
the  physical  basis  of  life  up  through  its  phenomenal 
expression  in  conscious  action,  in  a  way  startlingly 
similar  to  that  of  a  lately  deceased  English  historian 
of  philosophy,  who,  I  fear,  did  not  include  the  name 
of  this,  his  earliest  forerunner,  in  his  sketch  of  the 
development  of  the  world's  thought.  ^  He  differs 
from  the  modern  phenomenalist  alone  in  his  result, 
which  is,  that  the  external  phenomena  indicate  that 
all  life  is  a  single  entity,  which  he  regards  as  one  of 
the  manifestations  of  Deity.  On  this  result  he  further 
builds  up  a  theory,  that  the  human  soul  is  kindled 
by  the  bestowal  of  a  part  of  this  entity  on  the  organ- 
ism already  developed  and  prepared  for  it ;  through 

1  G.  H.  Lewes.     (T.) 


286     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

the  outworking  of  this  appHed  force  in  the  physical 
phenomena  of  hfe,  the  data  are  to  be  collected  which 
lead  to  a  sure  definition  of  its  nature.  But  this  is 
technical.  The  singer  is  a  man  of  introspective 
mind,  who  has  been  investigating  and  subtly  analyz- 
ing the  phenomena  of  his  personality  and  conscious 
life.  With  a  rigorous  induction  and  rarely  lucid  state- 
ment, he  traces  these  back  to  their  fountain-head,  the 
soul ;  this  soul  he  teaches  is  an  emanation  of  the 
Deity.  How  much  of  his  philosophy  is  the  reflection 
of  the  thought  of  his  time,  or  of  the  mystic  theosophy 
which  has  been  the  peculiar  habit  of  the  Oriental 
mind  from  the  earliest  times,  we  can  not  now  inquire, 
nor  even  give  space  for  a  comparison  of  him  with 
Pythagoras  and  contemporaneous  thinkers  in  ^Greece. 
He  represents  the  highest  achievements  of  the 
Hebrew,  I  had  almost  said  Shemitic,  mind,  in  the 
domain  of  mental  science,  for  the  Shemitic  racial 
habit  does  not  predispose  it  to  excellence  in  this 
field.  With  their  acute  and  painfully  minute  analysis, 
there  seems,  for  the  most  part,  utterly  lacking  that 
synthesis,  or  grouping  of  things  according  to  their 
analogies,  through  which  the  facts  are  led  back  to 
causes,  the  phenomena  arranged  under  principles, 
and  thus  a  philosophic  conception  gained  of  the  ope- 
rations and  laws,  either  of  mind  or  of  matter.  The 
Shemitic   mind   is,  more   than   the    Indo-European, 


SHEMITIC  PHIL  O  SO  PHY.  287 

endowed  with  those  faculties  which  give  birth  to 
speculative  research — curiosity,  imagination,  reflec- 
tion and  analysis.  There  are,  besides,  {q.\n  families  of 
language  so  rich  in  terms  appropriate  to  philosophical 
inquiry,  so  indicative  of  analytical  research  among 
the  people  who  coined  them,  as  the  Shcmitic. 

The  psychological  nomenclature  of  the  Hebrew  is 
well-nigh  as  highly  and  delicately  articulated  as  that 
of  the  Greek.  Why  they  lacked  the  further  histori- 
cal, logical,  and  synthetic  faculty  with  which  the 
Greeks  were  so  richly  endowed,  we  do  not  see  any 
necessary  reason,  either  in  their  mental  habit,  or 
environment.  Anthropology  has  no  adequate  solu- 
tion to  offer,  and  probably  never  will  have.  Racial 
peculiarities  are  of  a  kind  with  personal  character- 
istics, and  an  explanation  of  their  genesis  is  baffled 
by  problems  equally  recondite. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  history  of  philosophy 
has  been  the  history  of  the  development  of  the  Aryan 
mind.  What  answers  to  philosophy  in  native  She- 
mitic  literature  is  acute  proverbial  sayings,  or  minute 
observations  of  the  phenomena  of  mind  or  matter, 
which  the  thinker  lacked  power  to  grasp  into  a  gene- 
ralization. The  Talmud  contains  more  original  and 
epigrammatic  observations  of  phenomena  than  any 
book  in  Hebrew  literature,  yet  remains  a  hopelessly 
irredeemable  mass  of  disjecta  membra.   It  furnished  the 


288      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

brick  and  mortar;  the  Hebrew  mind  lacked  power 
to  build.  It  is  true  there  grew  up  in  Alexandria  a 
semi-Shemitic  school  of  philosophy,  the  new  Plato- 
nism,  but  it  was  the  product  of  the  Shemitic  mind 
fructified  by  Greek  thought. 

Arab  philosophy  is  a  myth — the  Arab  mind  is 
incapable  of  philosophy.  The  so-called  Arab  phi  • 
losophers  were  foreigners  who  had  learned  the  Aris- 
totelian philosophy,  and  reproduced  it  in  a  manner 
more  or  less  accurate,  with  almost  no  originality,  in 
the  Arabic,  which  since  the  seventh  century  has  been 
the  French  of  the  East.  Avicenna  was  a  Turk, 
Averroes  a  Moor,  Maimonides  a  Jew.  With  equal 
reason  the  French  might  claim  Leibnitz  as  one  of 
their  philosophers. 

The  remaining  six  Psalms,  cxl.-cxlv.,  attributed 
by  their  inscription  to  the  Davidic  collection,  are 
neither  historically  or  poetically  of  importance  enough 
to  detain  us,  and  offer  no  peculiarities  in  form  or 
style,  which  we  have  not  considered  in  speaking  of 
the  other  books. 

Psalm  cxli.  is  of  interest  from  its  having  been  the 
vesper  song  of  the  early  Church. 

Psalm  cxlii.  has  an  editorial  note,  that  it  was 
written  in  the  cave,  but  whether  of  Adullam  or  En- 
gedi  we  have  no  further  information. 

The  Fifth  Book  also  contains  sixteen  anonymous 


FIFTH  BOOK  OF  THE  PSALTER.  289 

Psalms.  Of  these,  four  are  what  are  called  alpha- 
betic songs.  Most  noteworthy  among  them,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  longest  in  the  Psalter,  is  the  one 
numbered  in  our  English  version  Psalm  cxix.  The 
art  in  an  alphabetic  poem  is  bric-a-brac,  the  same 
learned  trifling  that  is  exhibited  in  an  acrostic.  It  is 
not  the  product  of  a  creative  or  original  mind  or  age, 
it  is  only  possible  when  artificiality  has  replaced  art — 
expression,  thought — form,  originality.  This  Psalm 
is,  in  its  endless  reiterations  of  the  same  idea  through 
one  hundred  and  seventy-six  verses,  monotonous, 
inartistic,  common-place,  the  sole  handicraft — not 
art,  for  it  can  lay  no  claim  to  that — displayed,  is  in  so 
arranging  the  matter,  that  every  eighth  verse  begins 
with  a  new  letter  of  the  alphabet;  there  is  no  trace  of 
a  developing  and  consecutive  thought;  no  order  or 
connection  in  the  maxims  which  are  loosely  strung 
together.  From  one  or  two  touches  in  the  Psalm 
itself,  it  seems  that  the  author  was  both  in  captivity 
and  imprisonment,  so  it  has  been  concluded  by  the 
majority  of  scholars,  that  it  was  written  by  him  to  re- 
lieve the  tedium  of  his  confinement,  a  sort  of  effort  to 
construct  as  many  verses  as  possible  on  the  same  sub- 
ject, and  then  arrange  them  under  the  letters  of  the 
alphabet  with  which  they  began.  Solitary  confine- 
ment is  a  situation  which  reduces  even  a  strong  mind 
to  inanity.  Out  of  sheer  desperation  men  watch 
13 


290     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

spiders,  count  straws,  and  possibly  sometimes  com- 
pose alphabetical  poems.  Who  the  imprisoned 
author  was  we  do  not  know;  it  is  a  mere  guess 
which  assigns  the  poem  to  the  High  Priest  Jonathan. 
The  reason  for  its  preservation  in  the  Psalter,  was 
probably  the  use  of  it  for  the  instruction  of  the 
youths  in  the  Temple  schools,  its  alphabetic  form 
adapting  it  to  memorizing,  which  prevails  far  more 
in  the  Orient  than  among  ourselves.  We  may  ex- 
plain it  as  somewhat  of  the  same  order  of  poetry  as 
the  celebrated  rhyme  beginning  "  In  Adam's  fall 
we  sinned  all,"  or  any  of  the  numberless  produc- 
tions in  which  the  muse  has  been  harnessed  to 
teaching  children  the  cardinal  virtues,  or  the  order 
of  the  books  in  the  Scripture. 

Of  the  three  other  alphabetic  poems,  Psalms  cxi., 
and  cxii.  begin  each  verse  with  a  new  letter  of  the 
alphabet ;  in  Psalm  cxlv.  it  is  every  other  verse. 
They  seem  to  have  been  liturgic  forms  prepared 
for  the  worship  of  the  common  people,  to  whom  the 
sequence  of  the  letters  would  act  as  a  suggestion 
and  aid  to  the  memory.  In  the  later  Judaism  they 
came  to  be  used  as  charms,  the  letters  of  the  alpha- 
bet serving  as  a  string  of  beads.  The  Talmud  tells 
us,  that  whoever  repeats  Psalm  cxlv.,  thrice  a  day,  is 
sure  of  eternal  life. 

Of  the  anonymous  Psalms  in  this  collection,  other 


FIFTH  BOOK  OF  THE  PSALTER.  29 1 

than  the  alphabetic,  few  are  deserving  of  special  note. 
Almost  all  of  them  are  songs  prepared  for  the  Tem- 
ple, fashioned  after  older  models,  devoid  of  original 
thought,  barren  of  beauty  of  expression. 

Psalms  cxiii.-cxviii.  form  what  is  called  the  Hallel 
("i^DH  7-?n^  Egyptian  Hallel  or  Song  of  Praise)  sung 
by  the  people  on  their  various  feasts.  In  the  social 
service  on  Passover  evening  there  was  sung,  when 
drinking  the  fourth  glass  of  wine  at  the  end  of  the 
meal,  Psalm  cxv.^cxviii.,  which  is  doubtless  the  hymn 
sung  by  Christ  and  his  followers  at  the  close  of  the 
Last  Supper. 

Psalm  cxv.,  the  "  non  nobis  Domine,"  when  used 
in  the  Temple  service  was  sung  by  the  officiating 
priest  over  the  offering  which  he  was  presenting  to 
Jehovah. 

Psalm  cxvii.,  the  shortest  Psalm,  is  really  the  two 
closing  verses  of  Psalm  cxvi.,  which  only  a  misad- 
venture to  one  of  the  early  manuscripts  has  converted 
into  a  separate  Psalm. 

We  must  pass  by  Psalm  cxviii.,  the  processional 
with  which  the  restored  Temple  was  reentered,  and 
Psalms  cxxxv.,  cxxxvi.,  which  are  arranged  for  the 
antiphonal  chanting  of  the  Temple  choirs. 

Psalm  cxxxvii.  is  an  exquisite  bit  of  lyric  song 
written  in  Babylon,  on  whose  willows  the  unknown 
singer  had  hung  his  hirp.     The  softness  of  its  elegiac 


292      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSA  IMS. 

measure  makes  it  artistically  one  of  the  most  attrac- 
tive of  the  Psalms. 

Psalms  cxlvi.,  cxlvii.,  are  doxological  Psalms  with 
which  the  service  was  closed,  being  placed  very 
appropriately  at  the  end  of  the  collection.  Several 
of  them  have  interesting  historical  situations  to  which 
we  cannot  allude. 

Psalm  cxlviii.  should  be  noticed  for  the  broad 
touch  and  strong  relief  with  which  the  artist  paints 
the  picture  of  the  whole  creation  joining  in  the  praises 
of  Jehovah.  As  I  stood  once  in  the  Sistine  Chapel, 
studying,  in  its  half  twilight,  the  mural  paintings 
which  have  made  their  artist  immortal,  it  flashed 
across  my  mind  that  this  Psalm,  wdiich  I  had  heard 
not  long  before  in  the  service,  was  in  poetry,  just 
w^hat  the  "  Last  Judgment"  was  in  painting. 

Psalm  cxlix.  has  very  often  in  history  kindled  re- 
bellions, fanned  the  fires  of  martyrdom,  or  led  the 
forces  of  persecution.  It  was  the  favorite  hymn  to 
which  inquisitors  kindled  their  auto-da-fe.  In  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  it  was  the  battle  cry  with  which 
Tilly's  forces,  the  representatives  of  barbarism  and 
reaction,  charged  on  the  Swedes,  and  has  been  the 
watch-word  of  innumerable  peasant  revolts  both  in 
England  and  on  the  Continent. 

There  yet  remains  for  us  to  consider  the  most  im- 
portant part  poetically  of  the  Fif'h  Book,  the  collection 


SONGS  OF  DEGREES.  293 

of  fifteen  short  songs,  numbered  in  our  version  cxx- 
cxxxiv.,  bearing  the  inscription  "  Songs  of  Degrees." 
As  to  the  meaning  of  the  inscription  you  will  find  in 
the  books  a  disagreement  well  nigh  irreconcilable. 
The  Talmud,  as  usual  when  there  is  doubt,  chooses 
the  most  incredible  and  far-fetched  explanation — here 
a  silly  story  destitute  alike  of  point  or  possibility. 
The  early  versions  are  hopelessly  at  sea ;  they  partly 
transliterate  and  partly  paraphrase.  The  later  Jew- 
ish scholars  call  them  "  Songs  of  Steps,"  and  invent  a 
legend  of  their  being  sung  from  certain  Temple  steps 
on  the  eve  of  the  feast  days — it  is  probable  there 
were  no  such  steps  in  the  Temple.  Lastly  most 
Christian  scholars  refer  the  name  either  to  the 
metrical  form,  as  a  species  of  triolet,  or  to  their 
musical  accompaniment,  as  similar  to  a  fugue,  both 
foreign  to  what  we  know  of  Shemitic  poetry  and 
Shemitic  music,  while  for  neither  theory  is  there  the 
slightest  evidence  in  the  usage  of  the  word,  or  the 
form  of  the  songs  themselves.  All  these  interpreta- 
tions are  in  common  the  result  of  the  narrow  literary 
culture,  and  exclusively  theologic  aim  with  which 
the  Psalm  poetry  has  been  studied,  and  confirm  the 
old  adage  that  he  who  knows  but  one  literature, 
knows  no  literature.  Their  freshness,  their  brilliant 
color,  their  allusions,  their  reflection  of  the  homely 
phrase  and  surrounding  of  the  folk,  show  them  to 


294     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

have  no  other  author  than  the  mouth  of  the  people. 
They  were  ballads  which  grew  up  around  journeys^ 
which,  thrice  in  the  year,  were  made  from  all  the 
country  round  to  the  feasts  in  Jerusalem. 

At  Passover,  at  Harvest  and  at  Tabernacles,  the 
people  flocked  together  from  their  farms  and  pastures, 
into  their  towns  and  villages,  and  in  company  of  their 
neighbors  and  acquaintance,  marched  with  music 
and  with  song  to  the  shrine  or  Temple  of  Jehovah. 
It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  these  feasts  were 
purely  religious.  That  was,  no  doubt,  one  element, 
but  we  further  know  that  they  served  as  great  fairs, 
where  the  people  bartered  with  one  another,  and 
whither  the  Phenician  traders  came  to  purchase ; 
also  there  were  games  and  trials  of  skill.  In  a  word, 
they  were  not  unlike  the  Greek  games,  whose  origin 
was  also  religious.  Just  as  in  Olympia,  Athenian  and 
Spartan  met  together,  forgetting  all  save  that  they 
were  Hellens,  so  here,  Danites  from  the  slopes  of 
Hermon,  Simeonites  from  the  desert  of  the  South, 
Reubenites  from  the  steppes  of  Moab,  met  together 
in  Shiloh  or  Jerusalem,  forgetting  all  save  that  they 
were  Israelites ;  so  not  the  least  effect  of  these  festi- 
vals was  to  cultivate  the  national  patriotism,  and 
create  a  bond  of  union  for  the  national  life. 

During  the  feasts  Jerusalem  became  the  centre  oi 
commerce  for  all  the  surrounding  countries,  and  in 


SOJVGS  OF  DEGREES. 


295 


a  rude  age,  when  there  was  no  circulation  of  htera- 
ture,  this  concourse  of  the  people,  from  all  Israel, 
afforded  the  fittest  audience  for  the  recital  of  liter- 
ary productions,  and  the  publication  of  knowledge. 
How  extensive  the  literature  which  grew  up  around 
these  feasts  we  have  no  longer  any  means  of  ascer- 
taining; doubtless,  much  as  the  Greek  games,  they 
afforded  the  motive  for  many  works  which  have  been 
lost  to  us.  Around  such  gatherings,  there  always 
grows  up  a  luxuriant  ballad  poetry,  and  our  collector 
has  gathered  from  it  some  of  the  choicest  of  those 
which  were  connected  with  their  religious  observ- 
ance. The  meaning  of  the  inscriptions  is,  Songs  of 
Upgoings,  /.  e.,  Songs  of  Feast  Journeys,  or  as  some- 
times paraphrased,  "  Pilgrim  Songs." 

Psalms  cxxi.,  cxxii.  seem  to  be  the  songs  with 
v/hich  those  who  remain  behind  dismiss  the  pilgrims 
setting  out  for  the  feast,  wishing  Jehovah's  blessing 
for  their  journey  and  return. 

Psalm  cxxiii.  is  the  reply  of  the  pilgrims. 

Psalm  cxxiv.  is  a  vesper  song  of  the  company  as 
they  encamped  for  the  night. 

Psalm  cxxv.  the  song  when  from  the  hills  lying 
round  about  Jerusalem,  they  catch  the  first  glimpse  of 
the  Holy  City,  and  so  on  through  all  the  songs,  which 
are  plainly  referable  to  one  or  another  situation  during 
these  festal  journeys,  or  at  the  feasts  themselves. 


296     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

I  wish  I  had  time  to  analyze  for  you  all  these  most 
perfect  of  the  religious  ballads  of  the  Hebrew  people, 
and  then  to  supplement  what  Professor  Child  said  to 
you  last  year  of  European  ballads,  by  describing  the 
ballad  poetrj^  of  the  Shemites.  The  choicest  of  them 
are  Hebrew,  but  all  the  Hebrew  ballads  which  are 
preserved  to  us  being  religious,  they  do  not  reflect 
the  characteristic  life  and  thought  of  the  people 
as  clearly  as  do  the  ballads  of  the  Bedouin.  At 
a  future  time  I  may  present  to  you  some  studies 
in  the  ballad  poetry  of  the  Arabs.  I  am  sure  you 
would  enjoy  learning  of  the  Moallakat,  which,  not 
unlike  the  "  Songs  of  Degrees  "  in  our  Psalter,  grew 
up  around  the  pilgrimages  to  the  ancient  shrine  at 
Mecca,  the  earliest  Arab  literature  which  has  come 
down  to  us,  a  poetry  wild,  vast  and  monotonous  as 
the  desert  whence  it  was  born — of  the  Kasidas,  or 
Minnesongs,  in  which  the  lover,  with  a  knightly 
courtesy  more  exquisite  than  any  troubadour,  sings 
his  absent  lady,  the  traveller  his  camel  which  bears 
him  over  gleaming  and  yellow  sand,  the  warrior  his 
sword  and  the  joy  of  battle,  the  robber  his  swift  horse 
and  the  nightly  foray,  the  moralist  the  fleeting  nature 
of  life,  which  comes  and  goes  like  a  tent  in  the  desert, 
^  while  eternal  and  changeless  over  all  gleams,  deep  and 
mysterious,  the  blue  heaven  whose  secret  he  could 
not  read.     Then  when  these  roving  shepherds  had. 


ARAB  POETRY.  297 

become  the  kings  of  the  world,  and  dwelt  in  marble 
palaces  amidst  the  orange  groves  of  Cordova  and 
Bagdad,  there  arose  another  minstrelsy  which  sang  of 
nightly  boatings  by  torch-light,  of  moonlight  and  the 
stars,  of  meetings  in  rose  gardens,  of  palaces  and 
villas,  of  mosques  and  cities^  of  statues  and  painting, 
of  culture  and  luxury,  and  of  the  rough  desert  life 
from  which  their  fathers  had  come.  The  world 
knows  no  more  delicate  poetry. 

This  Fifth  Book,  we  can  only  say  in  finishing  our 
cursory  glance  through  it,  does  not  show  marks  of  a 
single  and  uniform  effort  in  its  collection,  but  seems 
rather  to  have  been  the  work  of  several  hands,  with 
the  aim  of  completing  and  supplementing  the  previ- 
ous four  collections. 

It  alone  remains  for  us  to  ascertain,  if  possible, 
by  whom  and  when  all  five  books  were  collected 
together  and  edited  in  the  form  we  now  have  them  in 
our  Psalter. 

As  to  when,  we  would  reply,  that  literary  and  his- 
torical reasons,  which  we  endeavored  to  make  clear  to 
you  in  an  early  lecture,  indicate  that  it  must  have 
been  cast  into  its  present  form  ere  the  Greek  con- 
quest of  Palestine,  b.  c.  332,  and  that  the  possibility  of 
one  or  two  Psalms  at  a  later  day  coming  into  the 
collection  from  the  margin  does  not  militate  against 
this  view,  or  weaken  the  strength  of  the  argument. 

13* 


298     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Internai  literary  reasons  lead  us  to  believe  that 
the  same  hands  which  collected  the  last  book  were 
those  which  edited  the  entire  Psalter  into  the  defi- 
nitely final  and  authoritative  shape  which  it  ever  after 
retained.  As  to  who  they  were,  we  have  neither  in- 
formation nor  clear  tradition.  That  it  was  not  the 
work  of  a  single  individual,  we  saw  a  moment  since 
when  speaking  of  the  Fifth  Book.  Most  probably  it 
was  the  work  of  the  body  of  ecclesiastics  and  scholars 
in  connection  with  the  Temple,  who  collected  and 
gave  authority  to  almost  all  the  writings  in  the  He- 
brew Scriptures.  They  seem  to  have  made  use  of 
the  four  older  collections,  without  essential  change 
of  text,  or  editorial  revision,  this  being  indicated  by 
the  repetition  of  the  same  song  in  different  books, 
and  by  other  proofs  which  you  will  recall  our  having 
alluded  to  from  time  to  time.  Their  design  was 
not  to  prepare  a  new  book  from  older  material,  but 
to  collect  together  the  older  books  and  issue  them, 
with  what  seemed  a  necessary  supplement,  in  a  final 
and  authoritative  form. 

I  trust  that  the  sequence  of  our  story  of  the  Psalm 
collection  has  been  clear  to  you.  What  we  call  the 
Psalter  is  a  collection  of  the  various  books  of  religious 
song,  which  grew  up  around  and  were  compiled 
for  the  sake  of  the  worship  of  the  Second  Temple, 
between  the  return   under  Joshua  and  Alexander's 


COLLECTION  OF  THE  FIVE  BOOKS. 


299 


conquest  of  Palestine,  say  during  the  two  centuries 
between  537  and  337  B.C.  The  First  Book  was 
compiled  for  the  opening  worship  of  the  restored 
Temple  by  some  priest  connected  with  the  early 
return,  who  draws  his  material  exclusively  from  the 
service  book  of  the  Solomonic  Temple,  "The  Sacred 
Songs  of  David."  The  Second  and  Third  Books 
were  prepared  by  Nehemiah,  about  a  century  later, 
and  were  part  of  his  reform  in  the  service.  He  not 
only  borrows  from  the  service  books  of  the  older 
Temple,  but  also  has  gathered  many  other  poems, 
whose  beauty  of  form  or  religious  expression  com- 
mended them  to  him  as  of  value  for  sacred  sone.  The 
Fourth  Book  was  compiled  by  some  scholar  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Temple,  about  fifty  years  later,  to  meet  a 
want  for  liturgic  chorals  which  none  of  the  other  books 
supplied.  Finally,  toward  the  middle  of  the  fourth 
century,  the  Temple  board  who  had  been  charged  with 
gathering,  editing,  and  regulating  the  Sacred  Books 
used  in  the  service,  came  to  take  in  hand  the  relig-ious 
song  of  the  Temple.  They  took  the  four  books  which 
were  already  in  constant  use,  added  to  them  a  sup- 
plemental collection  of  new  songs,  cast  the  whole  into 
a  single  book,  giving  to  it  as  a  prologue  Psalm  i.,  and 
as  a  doxology  Psalm  cl.,  and  introduced  it  by  their 
authority  into  the  service  of  the  Temple,  where,  with 
unessential  variations,  it  ever  after  remained. 


300     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Christianity  sprang  from  the  womb  of  Judaism ; 
the  early  church  sang  the  hymns  of  the  Temple  and 
Synagogue,  and  thus  it  is  that  these  old  Jewish  Tem- 
ple songs  are  still  sung  by  us. 

Aside  from  the  beauty  of  the  Psalter  in  poetry  and 
lyric  song,  which  will  commend  its  study  as  long  as 
culture  and  taste  and  letters  remain  among  men,  it 
will  be  sung  until  the  latest  times,  wherever  man  in 
his  loneliness  reaches  out  after  the  Eternal  Being, 
into  whose  nature  and  relation  to  His  creatures  it 
penetrates  deeper  than  any  other  book  in  the  world. 

Our  literary  study  of  this  book  and  its  songs  is 
now  complete.  It  remains  to  call  your  attention  to 
its  use  in  the  service,  and  briefly  explain  the  various 
liturgic  notes  which  gradually  grew  up  around  the 
text,  many  of  which  are  still  senselessly  preserved  in 
our  English  version.  In  order  to  make  this  clear  to 
you,  I  must  say  a  word  as  to  song  and  music  among 
the  Shemitic  people,  more  especially  among  the 
Hebrews. 

Song  and  music  are  twin  arts,  both  alike  the  ex- 
pression of  the  imagination  through  sound,  as  poetry 
through  words,  sculpture  through  form,  painting 
through  color. 

Song  is  the  expression  of  the  imagination  in 
sound  by  means  of  the  human  voice,  words  of 
course    being    unessential    to    song — a    song   in    a 


SHEMITIC  SONG  AND  MUSIC.  3OI 

foreign  language,  for  example,  may  be  just  as  per- 
fect in  its  impression  on  us,  as  one  the  words  of 
which  we  understand;  music  is  the  attempt  to 
imitate  or  supplement  the  voice  by  artificial  means. 
There  is  no  inherent  relation,  or  necessary  connec- 
tion between  song  and  music.  Song  is  in  every  na- 
tion the  earliest  of  the  arts ;  music  requires  for  its 
development  at  least  a  rude  civilization. 

Our  present  idea  of  song  as  a  melodious  or  har- 
monious rhythmical  expression  of  sound  by  the 
voice,  is  an  occidental  or  modern  one.  Many  peo- 
ples have  never  arrived  at  it ;  many,  equal  to  our- 
selves in  civilization,  conceive  of  it  quite  differently. 
The  only  definition  covering  the  ground  is  the  one  I 
have  given.  As  a  creation  of  the  imagination  music 
and  song  differ  from  mere  sound  quite  as  widely  as 
sound  does  from  noise. 

All  the  books  on  Hebrew  poetry  tell  us  that 
poetry  was  the  earliest  literature,  song  the  ear- 
liest speech  of  the  race,  and  tritely  refer  us  to  the 
Vedas,  to  the  songs  of  the  Hellenic  heroic  epoch  we 
call  the  Iliad,  to  the  sword-song  of  Lamech,  to  the 
epic  of  the  Canaanites  preserved  in  Genesis  x., 
further  informing  us  that  the  earliest  prose  literature 
is  not  older  than  the  tenth  century  before  our  era. 
For  myself  I  do  not  believe  that  the  primitive  man 
in  Eden  lisped  in  numbers,  or  that  poetry  and  song 


302      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

were  developed  before  prose.  Song  has  an  attraction 
which  leads  the  mind  to  revert  to  it,  an  assonance 
which  fixes  it  in  the  memory ;  so,  among  the  early 
peoples  devoid  of  writing  and  literature,  it  is  the 
song  handed  down  from  mouth  to  mouth  that  has 
remained  while  the  prose  has  perished.  Poetry  and 
song,  as  products  of  the  imagination,  could  not  be 
developed  before  the  imaginative  faculty,  where  they 
had  their  genesis,  and  I  doubt  if  the  primitive  man 
possessed  this. 

It  is  with  a  race  as  with  the  individual,  the  imagi- 
nation can  work  as  little  in  darkness  as  in  the  glare 
of  noon-day.  It  needs  the  half  light  of  twilight  to 
give  it  a  back-ground  on  which  to  project  itself;  it 
can  work  in  a  rude  and  brutish  man  as  little  as  in 
one  who  has  trained  himself  to  see  in  nature  naught 
but  a  barren  sequence  of  fact  and  phenomena.  The 
primitive  man,  engrossed  in  wringing,  with  scanty 
appliance,  a  bare  subsistence  fro'm  the  soil,  and  in 
constant  conflict  with  the  forces  which  environed 
and  threatened  to  overwhelm  him,  would  have  as 
little  play  for  the  imagination,  as  the  man  who  has 
reduced  the  whole  creatron  to  a  form  of  hydrogen,  or 
ciphered  it  into  an  equation.  It  is  in  the  period 
when  passing  from  ignorance  to  knowledge,  from 
barbarism  to  civilization,  that  the  imagination  of  a 
race  hitherto  latent  begins  to  work  on  the  dim  out- 


SHEMITIC  SONG  AND  MUSIC.  303 

lines  which  it  discerns,  but  is  not  yet  able  to  under- 
stand ;  it  is  this^  period  in  which  he  the  beginnings, 
both  of  the  mythology  and  art  of  every  people. 

If  we  believe  that  the  primitive  Shemite  was  a 
happy  shepherd  or  nomad,  living  in  blissful  security 
and  pastoral  innocence,  careless  of  labor  and  with 
every  want  supplied  by  the  bounty  of  nature,  we  may 
believe  that  from  sheer  joy  of  existence,  in  harmony 
with  the  voices  of  nature,  he,  too,  sang  instinctively, 
as  the  birds  do. 

If  we  believe  man  is  a  link  in  the  development  of 
an  idea,  come  to  the  world  in  ignorance  of  the  laws 
which  govern  either  it  or  himself,  compelled  to  win  a 
subsistence  before  he  can  advance  to  knowledge, 
our  ideas  of  the  beginnings  of  song  and  of  all  the  arts 
must  be  materially  modified.  They  could  not  have 
arisen  until  man  had  subdued  nature. 

We  have,  among  the  Shemitic  people,  no  traces  of 
song  until  after  they  have  come  in  contact  with  the 
Accadian  civilization  of  the  Euphrates  valley.  What 
their  civilization  was  when  they  reached  Babylonia 
we  do  not  know,  nor  whether  they  had,  as  yet, 
arrived  at  their  song'-period.  We  do  know  that  the 
oldest  poetry  preserved  in  the  Genesis  is  of  Turanian 
origin,  and  first  came  to  the  Shemites  through  con- 
tact with  some  Tatar  people. 

But  whatever  the  origin  of  Shemitic  song  may  be, 


304 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


the  Hebrews  were  a  people  who  had  cultivated  song 
and  who  celebrated  with  it  all  their  occasions  of  joy 
or  sorrow.  The  reapers  sang  as  they  garnered  the 
golden  harvests,  the  vintagers  as  they  trod  out  the 
wine  press,  the  women  as  they  toiled  at  the  mill ; 
there  were  love  songs  and  marriage  songs ;  then  the 
keening  of  the  mourners  who  went  about  the  streets, 
and  the  dirges  of  the  funeral  train  who  bear  their 
dead  to  the  home  prepared  for  all  the  living;  the 
armies  returning  from  victory  were  received  by  pro- 
cessions of  singers,  and  often  there  were  choruses 
who  accompanied  the  troops  to  battle,  and  sang  war- 
songs  to  nerve  them  to  the  charge ;  their  banquets 
were  accompanied  by  roisterings  and  drinking-songs 
which  were  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  the  prophets. 
One  of  the  common  proverbs  says,  "As  a  signet  of 
carbuncle  set  in  gold,  so  is  a  concert  of  song  at  a  wine 
banquet."  At  the  court  there  were  companies  of  paid 
singers,  and  Amos  draws  a  graphic  picture  for  us  of 
the  luxurious  manners  of  the  later  kingdom  of  Israel 
whose  effeminate  nobles,  reeking  with  perfumes,  and 
stretched  on  couches  of  ivory,  remained  singing  and 
feasting  while  the  enemy  was  knocking  at  their  very 
doors.  Through  the  land  there  wandered  minstrel 
troops,  like  the  Minnesingers  or  Jongleurs,  singing 
from  hamlet  to  hamlet  among  the  people,  at  their 
local  feasts  and  gatherings. 


SHEMITIC  SONG  AND  MUSIC.  305 

There  is  in  antiquity  no  people  about  whose  song 
we  have  such  clear  information  and  yet  of  which  we 
know  so  little.  The  remains  of  these  songs  which 
have  been  committed  to  writing  belong  to  literature, 
and  have  in  a  measure  been  considered  under  lyric 
poetry,  but  the  song  itself,  the  utterance,  vanished 
into  air  with  the  voice  of  the  singers,  and  as  to  how 
they  sang  we  can  alone  gather  from  uncertain  analogy, 
or  a  tradition  manufactured  to  the  order  of  the  want 
of  such  knowledge.  In  any  investigation  of  Shemitic 
song  the  Arameans  must  be  left  out  of  account,  their 
native  song,  just  as  their  native  literature,  having 
irrecoverably  perished. 

Subsequent  to  the  second  century  there  sprang  up, 
in  Mesopotamian  churches,  a  Syriac  song,  more  per- 
fect in  form,  more  rich  in  thought,  more  exquisite 
in  sentiment  than  any  produced  in  the  occidental 
churches.  More  than  you  are  aware  of  what  we  now 
sing  both  in  words  and  melody  comes  from  Ephraem 
or  Bardasenes  or  some  of  the  Syrian  hymn  writers; 
or  rather  I  should  say,  did  sing  until  our  sacred 
melody  had  been  inundated  by  the  recent  outpourings 
of  the  American  Polyhymnia.  But  Syriac  church 
song  was  an  exotic,  growing  up  under  Greek  influ- 
ence ;  it  was  surely  no  robbery  for  them  to  spoil  the 
Greeks,  after  the  Greeks  had  so  often  despoiled  them. 
A  church  song  thus  growing  up  under  both  Christian 


3o6     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

and  Greek  influence,  can  of  course  not  be  regarded 
as  representing  native  Shemitic  song. 

We  have  here,  as  elsewhere,  to  seek  among  the 
Arabs  the  truest  expression  of  the  Shemitic  mind, 
the  oldest  type  of  Shemitic  manners.  In  the  song 
of  the  desert  we  have  preserved  a  form  of  melody 
which  approaches  most  nearly  the  song  of  the 
Hebrews,  In  our  sense  of  the  word  it  is  not  song, 
for  it  lacks  rhythm.  Rhythm  is  that  measured  rise 
and  fall  in  vocal  or  instrumental  sound,  which  to  our 
ears  creates  its  agreeable  impression,  corresponding 
to  what  in  sculpture  or  architecture  we  call  sym- 
metry, in  painting  perspective.  The  song  of  the 
Bedouin  as  he  drives  before  him  his  heavily  laden 
camel,  or  recounts  by  the  nightly  camp  fire  the  prow- 
ess of  his  tribe,  is  no  more  than  what  we  would  call 
recitative.  In  the  utterance  of  the  sound  he  does  not 
propose  to  himself,  as  we  do  in  our  singing,  to  pro- 
duce a  melodious  or  agreeable  impression.  The 
sound  is  regarded  merely  as  a  vehicle  for  the  words, 
and  is  fitted  to  and  determined  by,  not  only  the 
■  thought,  but  even  the  very  form  of  the  words.  Hence 
their  singing  is  a  matter  of  accent,  of  intonation 
and  assonance,  bearing  no  resemblance  to  our  pre- 
sent song. 

It  is  probable  that  both  the  secular  and  religious 
song  of  Israel  were  not  dissimilar  to  this  recitative 


THE  TEMPLE  CHOIR.  307 

song  of  the  Bedouin,  in  fact  from  all  we  can  gather 
it  seems  to  have  been  the  kind  of  song  peculiar  to 
and  hereditary  in  the  Shemitic  race  from  the  earliest 
times.  We  must  first,  however,  glean  the  few  scanty 
notices  in  the  Psalter  as  to  the  religious  song»  of  the 
Temple,  before  we  can  make  any  statement  as  to  its 
probable  form. 

Song  being  so  common  among  the  Hebrew  peo- 
ple, David  could  have  had  no  trouble  in  drafting  the 
four  thousand  mentioned  in  Chronicles  as  connected 
with  the  Temple  song.  That  these  were  all  in  ser- 
vice at  any  one  time  is  improbable,  the  exaggerations 
of  Josephus  and  the  absurdities  of  the  Talmud  not 
deserving  serious  attention.  There  seems  to  have 
been  a  chosen  choir  of  two  hundred  and  eighty-eight 
singers  and  performers  permanently  attached  to  the 
Temple,  by  detachments  of  whom  the  daily  service 
was  sung.  Drafts  on  the  larger  number  were  only 
made  to  furnish  choruses  at  the  feasts  and  on  state 
occasions,  or  to  fill  up  the  ranks  of  the  smaller  and 
stated  Temple  choir.  This  regular  choir  was  made 
up  both  of  bass  and  soprano  voices.  How  the  other 
parts  familiar  to  us  were  carried,  or  whether  they 
were  represented  at  all,  we  do  not  know.  The 
soprano  parts  were  carried  by  female  singers — this 
once  disputed  question  is  now  very  clear  to  all  scho- 
lars.    Here,  as  so  often  elsewhere,  the  Jewish  ortho- 


308     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

doxy  of  modern  times  in  allowing  no  female  singers 
in  the  Synagogue,  represents  not  a  knowledge,  but 
an  ignorance  of  the  past.  In  fact,  I  believe  that  all 
the  restrictive  religious  regulations  of  the  service  and 
the  worship,  as  the  "  Court  of  the  Women"  and  many 
distinctions  inimical  to  them,  are  the  outgrowth  of 
later  times  and  foreign  influence. 

The  Bedouin  Shemite,  on  his  native  heath  and  in 
his  pristine  state,  is  with  all  his  failings  nature's  gen- 
tleman ;  his  courtesy  and  respect  for  woman  are  more 
delicate  and  refined  than  any  produced  by  our 
modern  civilization.  When  the  Shemite  came  in 
contact  with  the  Turk  in  Babylonia,  he  was  first 
smudged  with  the  touch  of  a  race  which  has  never 
appeared  in  history  save  to  defile  or  to  destroy. 
Among  the  early  Shemitic  people  woman  held  a 
position  in  every  way  co-ordinate  and  equal  to  that 
of  man.  The  regulations  of  the  later  Biblical 
books  and  of  the  Talmud  are  as  little  representa- 
tive of  primitive  Shemitic  or  Jewish  society  as  is  the 
Koran.  There  can,  at  all  events,  be  no  doubt  that 
they  were  in  the  Temple  choir.  We  find  them  men- 
tioned in  the  tabernacle  at  Shiloh,  in  the  Solomonic 
Temple,  and  as  returning  both  under  Joshua  and  Ezra 
for  the  expressly  stated  purpose  of  furnishing  part  of 
the  choir  in  the  restored  Temple.  It  is  well  known 
that  under  some  blighting  influences  of  a  later  time, 


MUSICAL  INSCRIPTIONS  OF  THE  PSALMS.     309 

what  we  know  not,  they  were  excluded  from  the 
choir,  but  it  is  equally  clear,  and  proven  by  all  the 
testimony  it  is  capable  of,  that  in  the  earlier  time 
they  sang  in  the  Temple, 

In  regard  to  the  inscriptions  of  the  Psalms  re- 
ferring to  song,  I  would  say  that  they  seem  only  to 
appear  with  those  songs  which  were  used  in  the 
worship  of  the  First  Temple.  The  irregular,  dis- 
connected and  irrelevant  way  in  which  they  are  used 
show  them  to  be  chance  choir  notes. 

Scholars  who  have  carefully  investigated  the  whole 
matter  have  reached  the  conclusion  that,  at  the  de- 
struction of  the  Solomonic  Temple,  all  that  could  be 
saved  from  the  general  ruin  were  some  few  songs  in 
the  sheets  prepared  for  distribution  among  the  choir, 
containing  such  notes  as  would  show  to  what  part 
they  belonged,  or  suggest  the  key  and  accompani- 
ment. Of  thos'e  relating  to  instrumental  music  we 
will  speak  in  a  moment,  but  the  most  important  of 
them  is  one  of  equal  value  for  a  knowledge  of  the 
song ;  that  is  the  one  rendered  in  our  version,  "  To 
the  chief  musician,"  ^VJt^2).  Though  barbarously 
distorted  and  misunderstood  by  the  old  versions,  the 
meaning  is  very  clear,  "For  the  leader  of  the 
choir;"  that  is,  it  is  the  copy  containing  the  score 
and  the  words  used  by  the  leader  in  directing  the 
choir  and  orchestra.     From  the  number  of  Psalms 


3IO 


ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 


(fifty-five)  which  have  this  inscription,  a  German  has 
proposed  a  theory  that  it  was  the  leader's  portfolio 
which  was  rescued. 

Of  the  inscriptions  bearing  solely  on  song,  we  find, 
1st,  Shir  (py,  "song,"  in  the  English  version)  Psalm 
xlvi.,  meaning  a  song  to  be  sung  without  instru- 
mental accompaniment. 

2d,  Al-hasli-sJieminith  (ri'ro^'l~7_y^  English  version : 
"  upon  Sheminith),"  Psalms  vi.,  xii.,  set  for  the  bass 
voices. 

3d.  Al  alainoth  (^^^^l'"  i'>  English  version  :  "  upon 
Alamoth),"  set  for  the  soprano  voices,  and  sung  as  we 
saw  a  moment  since  by  women.  It  does  not  mean 
tenor  voices,  nor  are  the  boy  choirs  of  the  First 
Temple  aught  save  a  figment  of  some  Jewish  Doctor ; 
they  came  in  at  a  later  day,  perhaps  not  long  prior  to 
our  era,  as  a  substitute  for  women's  voices.  The 
same  inscription  has  been  preserved  at  the  close  of 
Psalm  xlviii. 

Psalm  ix.  has  apparently  been  preserved  on  a  sheet 
which  was  in  use  in  one  of  the  choir  schools,  for  it 
has  the  inscription,  "  arranged  for  training  of  the  so- 
prano voices "  (l?i  r\-io-S;'  for  |3^  ^'^'^\t,  or  possibly 
\TL  ^^^7-)-  One  might  read  this  inscription  as  it 
stands  in  our  English  version,  "  upon  Muth-lab- 
ben,"  until  gray  without  gaining  from  it  the  slightest 
idea. 


MUSICAL  INSCRIPTIONS  OF  THE  PSALMS.     3  I  I 

Other  of  these  inscriptions  contain  the  name  of 
some  familiar  melody,  either  sacred  or  secular,  to 
whose  tune  the  song  was  to  be  sung.  You  are  all 
conversant  with  the  similar  usage  in  modern  hymn 
collections.  To  test  it  I  opened  a  celebrated  hymn 
book  and  within  a  few  pages  found  a  hymn  set  to 
Old  Hundred,  and  another  to  that  bewitching  Scotch 
ballad,  "  Robin  Adair."  Of  such  inscriptions  there 
seem  to  be  sacred  melodies  "  Fair  as  lilies  is  thy 
Law"  ( ^n^  ri^v^  ^^^  or  nnj;  D'rc?iy-bx^  or  simply 
D'r^iy-7^)  to  which  four  Psalms,  xlv.,  Ix.,  Ixix.,  Ixxx. 
were  sung,  and  "  Destroy  not,  O  God,  thy  people  " 
(nriE/ri-^x)  to  which  also  four  Psalms,  Ivii.,  Iviii.,  lix., 
Ixxv.  were  sung. 

Of  secular  melodies  you  may  note,  "  The  stag  at 
dawn "  (^ViW:i  ^;:^-^V_),  to  which  Psalm  xxii.  is  set. 
It  was  probably  a  melody  as  familiar  to  them  as 
"  The  stag  at  eve  had  drank  his  fill  "  is  to  us. 

Another  secular  melody  is,  "  O  silent  dove,  what 
bringest  thou  us  from  out  the  distance "  {^P~iV 
D^pnn  dSk  ^^  to  which  Psakn  Ivi.  is  set.  There  are 
many  other  inscriptions  of  a  similar  character,  but  I 
will  not  detain  you  by  dwelling  upon  them. 

There  still  remains  unanswered  the  main  question, 
how  did  they  sing,  but  it  is  just  the  question  which 
cannot  be  answered.  There  were  no  notes  or  writ- 
ten indication  of   the   music;    indeed  none   of  the 


312     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

Shemitic  peoples  have  made  use  of  any  musical  nota- 
tion until  within  a  few  centuries.  The  melodies  were 
preserved  by  tradition,  and  handed  down  orally  from 
one  generation  to  another,  so  there  was  constant 
change  and  liability  of  loss.  If  any  of  you  have 
ever  endeavored  to  unravel  the  Greek  song,  which  had 
notation  after  a  fashion,  you  may  have  some  concep- 
tion of  the  difficulties  attending  the  study  of  the 
Jewish,  which  had  none  at  all.  The  results  of  minute 
and  technical  investigations  indicate  that  it  was  a 
recitative  melody,  with  a  few  simple  cadences,  not 
unlike  the  song  of  the  Arab. 

To  the  often  asked  question,  has  any  of  it  been  pre- 
served until  our  time,  I  would  answer  that  there  are 
possibly  echoes  of  it  to  be  found  in  two  quarters  ac- 
cessible to  you  even  here  in  Baltimore,  i.  In  the 
cantillation,  or  chanting  of  Scripture  in  the  syna- 
gogue; not  in  the  synagogue-songs,  for  these  are  all  of 
late  origin.  2.  In  what  are  known  as  the  Gregorian 
melodies,  which  grew  up  in  the  earliest  Jewish-Chris- 
tian communities  and  were  fashioned  after  the  song 
they  had  been  wont  to  sing  in  the  Temple.  Most 
scholars,  whose  musical  training  gives  force  to  the  re- 
sults of  their  literary  investigations,  seem  agreed  that 
these  Gregorian  chants,  though  in  many  points  dis- 
similar to  the  old  Temple  songs,  are,  on  the  whole,  the 
truest  reflex  of  them,  which  has  come  down  to  us. 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE   TEMPLE.  313 

The  music  of  the  Temple  might  be  spoken  of  pro- 
tractedly— it  need  and  will  occupy  us  but  a  mo- 
ment. 

Artistically  considered  there  is  between  music  and 
song  somewhat  the  same  distinction  as  between  lyric 
and  epic  poetry,  both  of  which  are  the  expression  of 
the  imagination  through  words,  differing  alone  in  the 
use  of  different  material.  So  music  and  song  are  both 
the  expression  of  the  imagination  through  sound, 
differing  alone  in  their  use  of  different  material — 
song  the  more  subjective  art,  expressed  through 
the  human  voice,  music  the  more  objective,  by  the 
use  of  some  artificial  substitute  for  it.  That  the 
origin  of  music  among  all  nations  was  subsequent 
to  that  of  song,  and  that  in  its  beginnings  it  was 
no  more  than  an  aid  to  the  voice,  will  be  clear 
to  any  who  have  studied  the  history  of  the  art.  The 
Shemitic  people,  according  to  their  oldest  traditions, 
first  learned  music  from  their  contact  with  the  Mon- 
gols ;  there  does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  native, 
or  peculiar  Shemitic  music.  Tubal,  a  Mongol,  is  re- 
presented as  the  father  of  all  those  who  perform  on 
instruments. 

The  Israelites,  in  their  historic  period,  followed 
Egyptian  musical  methods  and  used,  with  slight 
modifications,  Egyptian  instruments.  Were  there 
time  it  would  be  very  easy  to  reconstruct  for  you, 

14 


314     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

from  the  paintings  of  the  Egyptian  temples  and 
tombs,  a  clear  picture  of  Egyptian  music. 

The  Egyptians  were  the  most  cultured  people  of 
antiquity,  both  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  music. 
Whence  their  traditions  of  the  art  came,  or  how  they 
arose,  we  do  not  know ;  like  the  rest  of  their  marvel- 
lous and  refined  civilization,  it  seems  to  have  almost 
dropped  full  grown  from  the  clouds.  One  grows 
weary  in  seeing  reiterated,  in  histories  of  music,  the 
stock  fables  of  the  Greeks,  as  to  the  origin  of  the  art, 
or  the  inventions  and  theories  of  Pythagoras  and 
Terpander.  A  thousand  years  before  Pythagoras, 
Egyptian  music  was  long  past  its  golden  age ;  the 
monuments  show  us  musical  instruments  as  perfect, 
(some  of  them  more  perfect),  as  any  which  the  world 
has  since  produced,  while  there  had  been  developed  a 
theory  of  musical  art  more  elaborate  than  any  known 
until  the  revolution  of  music  by  the  introduction  of 
harmony.  I  always  relish  the  fine  sneer  of  the  Egyp- 
tian priest,  "  The  Greeks !  the  Greeks  are  but  children." 

We  must  remember  there  was  a  wide  difference 
between  the  music  of  antiquity,  and  what  we  under- 
stand by  music  at  the  present  day.  To  appreciate  it 
aright,  you  must  know  the  distinction  between  melody 
and  harmony  ;  melody  being  the  succession,  in  regu- 
lar recurrence,  of  similar  intonations  or  cadences ; 
harmony,  the  concord  arising  from  the  union  of  dis- 


THE  MUSIC  OF  THE  TEMPLE.  3 1  5 

sonant  sounds.  However,  we  cannot  delay  to  elab- 
orate the  distinction. 

The  sole  office  of  the  melodic  music  of  antiquity- 
was  in  subordination  to  the  song,  either  as  an  accom- 
paniment to,  or  interpreter  of  it ;  it  was  no  more  than 
a  guide  to  the  voice.  This  being  so,  we  can  the 
better  understand  the  Hebrew  Temple  music,  and 
why  string-instruments,  most  suited  for  vocal 
accompaniment,  formed,  almost  exclusively,  the 
orchestra.  {Ncginoth,  in  the  inscription  of  Psalm  vi., 
means  "  stringed  instruments.")  No  less  than  fifty- 
seven  Psalms  contain  the  inscription,  Midmor,  which 
means  a  song  to  be  sung  to  the  stringed  accompani- 
ment ;  then,  as  strings  formed  the  chief  part  of  the 
orchestra,  meaning  no  more  than  "  to  be  sung  to  the 
orchestral  accompaniment." 

Of  stringed  instruments  in  the  Temple  band,  there 
were,  i,  the  kinnor  or  lyre,  which  was  a  favorite 
instrument  of  the  Jews,  as  it  was  of  the  Greeks.  It 
was  played  either  with  a  plectrum  or  with  the  fingers. 
The  classical  writers  deem  the  invention  of  its 
eleventh  string  an  inspiration  of  genius.  The  Egyp- 
tians used  veiy  constantly  a  lyre  with  eighteen 
strings ;  how  many  the  Jews  used  we  do  not  know. 
In  the  ordinary  band  for  daily  service  there  were 
two  lyres.  2.  The  nebel,  or  harp,  translated  in  our 
version  "  Psaltery,"  almost  precisely  similar  in  form 


31  6     ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

to  our  harps.  It  had  a  varying  number  of  strings, 
sometimes  ten  (Psalm  xxxiii.  2,)  sometimes  as  many  as 
twenty-one,  and  was  the  chief  instrument  in  the  Tem- 
ple band,  there  being  nine  harps  in  the  daily  orchestra. 

The  only  "  instrument  of  percussion  "  in  the  Tem- 
ple band  was  a  single  pair  of  cymbals,  used  by  the 
leader  in  marking  time,  and  not  a  direct  accompani- 
ment to  the  song.  They  were  similar  in  form  to  our 
band  cymbals.  In  Egypt  the  cymbals  were  never 
used  save  in  connection  with  the  worship,  and  the 
same  appears  to  have  been  the  usage  in  Israel.  For 
popular  song  the  tambourine,  whose  inventor  was 
justly  murdered  by  his  incensed  fellow-citizens,  or  the 
triangles,  took  the  place  of  the  cymbals.  Instru- 
ments of  percussion,  however,  even  in  popular  music, 
were  not  employed  to  accompany  the  song;  as  in 
the  present  Shemitic  Orient,  their  only  use  was  to 
increase  the  volume  of  sound. 

Of  wind  instruments  there  were  in  the  band  four 
flutes,  or  rather  pipes,  (Jialil),  the  only  instrument 
besides  the  strings  used  as  an  accompaniment,  not 
regularly,  but  to  supplement  the  strings  on  certain 
set  occasions,  or  in  the  more  plaintive  melodies.  One 
of  the  elegiac  Psalms,  (Psalm  v.,)  contains  the  inscrip- 
tion that  it  was  to  be  sung  to  the  flutes  alone. 

Finally,  there  were  two  straight  trumpets  ishophar) 
which  formed  no   part  of  the  orchestra  proper,  but 


ORCHESTRA   OF  THE  TEMPLE.  3  i  7 

were  blown  for  calling  the  people  together,  or  indicat- 
ing the  different  parts  of  the  service. 

The  purely  musical  inscriptions  are  very  obscure, 
both  those  which  indicate  the  time  of-  the  melody 
{iniktam,  maskil  and  the  like)  and  the  sort  of  melody 
(the  gittith,  shiggaion).  The  most  familiar  of  them  is 
the  much  disputed  selah,  found  seventy-one  times  in 
the  Psalter.  Scholars  are  for  the  most  part  now 
agreed,  that  it  is  no  more  than  one  of  the  abbrevia- 
tions with  which  all  Hebrew  books  are  so  full,  stand- 
ing for,  "^"^n  ^t^"n  nSjrnS  ±  "  Let  the  song  rise  higher." 
If  you  carefully  investigate  its  occurrence,  you  will 
find  it  almost  without  exception,  in  the  copy  from 
which  the  leader  directed.  It  was  probably  only  a 
note  for  guiding  him  in  leading.  Other  scholars 
have  given  it  a  meaning  not  unlike  "  da  capo "  in 
our  music,  but  whatever  the  exact  shade  of  meaning 
there  can  not  be  the  slightest  doubt  that  it  is  merely 
a  choir  note  for  guiding  the  music.  There  is  about 
as  much  propriety  in  reading  it  now  in  our  service, 
as  there  would  be  in  reading  the  Italian  abbreviations 
by  which  the  time  or  key  of  our  tunes  is  set. 

Two  lyres  and  nine  harps  twanging  inharmon- 
iously ;  two  dozen  men  and  women  chanting  in 
unrhythmed  cadence ;  such  was  the  ordinary  daily 
worship  of  the  Solomonic  Temple.  On  feast  days  it 
was  the  same,  only  a  little  more  of  it.      We  can  hear 


31  8      ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  THE  PSALMS. 

at  any  concert  what,  to  our  taste,  is  better  song  and 
music  than  was  ever  heard  in  the  Temple,  from  its 
foundation  until  its  destruction  by  Titus.  The  world's 
architecture  lost  very  little  in  the  destruction  of  the 
Temple;  quite  as  little  has  the  world  suffered  from  the 
loss  of  Hebrew  music.  Had  the  songs  sung  in  the 
Temple  perished,  the  loss  to  the  culture  and  religion 
of  men  would  have  been  irreparable.  Preserved  as 
they  have  been  until  our  time,  ive  are  better  able  to 
sing  and  render  them  in  music,  than  were  the  people 
from  whose  teeming  and  inspired  imagination  they 
sprang. 

Our  treatment  of  the  Temple  song  and  music  makes 
no  pretense  of  doing  more  than  opening  up  the  sub- 
ject, and  being  suggestive  of  the  manner  in  which  it 
is  to  be  approached.  A  single  word  further,  and  I 
am  through. 

It  is  a  question  of  interest  to  what  extent  the 
hypophonal,  or  responsive  singing  of  the  people, 
as  opposed  to  the  antiphonal,  or  responsive  singing  of 
the  choir,  was  in  vogue  in  the  Temple. 

On  ordinary  occasions  the  people  present  seem  to 
have  had  no  part  in  the  song  save  in  the  final  doxol- 
ogies  (the  Amen  and  Hallehi-yah).  There  are  a  few 
Psalms  arranged  for  responsive  singing  between  the 
choir  and  the  people,  but  they  were  only  sung  on 
special  occasions.    Probably  the  people  never  did  sing 


ORCHESTRA  OF  THE  TEMPLE.  319 

through  the  whole  hymn  with  the  choir,  still  less  did 
they  carry  the  hymn  themselves  as  is  the  wont  in 
congregational  singing. 

We  have  now  reached  our  journey's  end. 

The  questions  connected  with  the  translation  and 
transmission  of  the  Psalter  to  us,  are  not  germane  to 
the  study  of  any  one  book,  but  are  common  to  the 
entire  collection  of  Hebrew  literature,  and  can  only 
justly  be  considered  after  the  peculiar  problems  of  all 
the  separate  books  have  been  weighed  and  adjusted. 

It  has  been  my  aim  to  present  the  Psalter  to  you 
from  its  literary  and  artistic  side.  I  have  striven  to 
consider  it  in  the  same  way  that  the  works  of  Chau- 
cer, and  Shakspere,  and  Dante,  and  other  master- 
pieces of  modern  poetry  have  been  heretofore  pre- 
sented to  you  in  this  place. 

At  this  late  moment  I  can  only  thank  you  for  the 
forbearing  courtesy  with  which  you  have  followed 
these  lectures. 

Their  end  will  have  been  reached,  if  any  one  in  my 
audience  has  been  incited  to  a  renewed  reading  and 
study  of  the  world's  deepest,  tenderest  and  most 
artistic  poetry,  the  Hebrew  Psalms. 

They  have  been  the  inspiration  of  the  greatest  ar- 
tists and  poets  of  our  race;  they  will  fail  in  their 
meaning  for  you  unless  they  become  part  of  your 
culture  as  well  as  of  your  faith. 


Old  Faiths  in  New  Light 

BY 

NEWMAN    SMYTH, 

Author    of   "  The   Religions    Feeling.'''' 


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put  these  results  of  recent  scholarship  together  according  to  one  leading 
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The 


Conflict  of  Christianity 

WITH    HEATHENISM. 

By  DR.    GERHARD     UHLHORN. 

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The  EARLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE.  From  the  Assassination  of  Julius  Csesar  to 
the  Assassination  of  Domitian.  By  the  Rev.  \V.  Wolfe  Capes,  M.A.,  Reader  of 
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The  PURITAN  REVOLUTION.     By  J.  Langton  Sanford.  (No7v  ready.) 

The  FALL  of  the  STUARTS  ;  and  WESTERN  EUROPE  from  1678  to  1697, 
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CRITICAL,  DOCTRINAL,  AND    HOMILETICAL. 
TR^TSrSXiA-TEID,     E;]SrijA.R&ED,   ^ND     EDITED 

BY 

PHILIP    SCHAFF,    D.D., 

PROFESSOR     IN     THE     UNION    THEOLOGICAL    SEMINARY. 


This  is  the  most  comprehensive  and  exhaustive  Commentary  on  the  whole 
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» » « 

LECTURES  ON  THE  SCIENCE  OF  LANGUAGE. 

By  F.  Max  Muller,   M.  A.,  Fellow  of  All  Souls  College,  Oxford. 

First  Series  :— Comprising  those  delivered  in  April,  May,  and 
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CHIPS  FROM  A  GERMAN  WORKSHOP. 

By  F.  Max  Muller,  M.A.,  Fellow  of  All  Souls  College,  Oxford.  Re- 
printed from  the  Second  Revised  London  Edition,  with  copious 
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LECTURES  ON  THE  SCIENCE  OF  RELIGION. 

WITH  PAPERS  ON  BUDDHISM,  AND  A  TRANSLATION  OF 

THE  DHAMMAPADA,  OR  PATH  OF  VIRTUE.     By  F.  Max 

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THE  ORIGIN  AND  GROWTH  OF  RELIGION, 

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